Is it the social caste system or simple human kindness that has endured?
I remember one day in Bangalore, Southern India, I was riding my bike down a long, gradual hill while a rickshaw man was struggling to peddle his rickshaw up the hill with two adults in it. One of his thongs (flip flops) fell off. I came to a screeching halt, picked it up, and started back towards him with it in my outstretched hand.
He came unglued and started yelling at me to put it down. I had touched his dirty thong, and even though I was a boy, I was white and way above his standing in the social caste system. Because others on the road witnessed this, I had – in his mind – drilled his social standing home and made it worse by touching his “dirty” property and social unworthiness.
