Giridharadas experienced first-hand the different treatment of the servant and the served one morning when he visited friends for breakfast. A "typical elite Indian breakfast with all of the fussiness and all of the servitude" was presented by the family's obsequious and much-loved servant.  Later that day, Giridharadas returned to the friend's house — this time in shorts and a T-shirt — to bring over a mattress. The same man who had served breakfast mistook Giridharadas for a delivery man and began gruffly barking orders at him.

When Giridharadas reminded the servant who he was, he says the man underwent a "total human metamorphosis ... he shrunk right in front of me from a master to a servant," Giridharadas says. "And you realize that almost every Indian is engaged in both of these transactions at different moments of their days: superior to some, inferior to others. As an Indian poet once said, 'never thinking to resist the one kick from above, nor to refrain from giving the kick below.'"

In Nepal, we have the exact same problem.