Where Am I Giving: A Global Adventure Exploring How to Use Your Gifts and Talents to Make a Difference

16Start with Your Local (India, 2017): Crossing caste lines / Towers and slums / Untouchables

WHEN THE 50-SOMETHING-YEAR-OLD MUSTACHED man wearing a sailor's suit saluted me, I wasn't comfortable. Nor was I when the hotel manager told me the man in the sailor's suit, his “boy,” could carry my bag to my room and then called for him: “Boy!”

I wasn't comfortable ringing a bell at lunch so a waiter could meet my immediate need – Heinz ketchup.

I wasn't comfortable when the man in the sailor's suit saluted me as I left in the morning to make my way to the docks. I've earned no rank or status. I had enough money to buy a plane ticket to India. I was American. I knew a guy who knew a guy who was a member at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club and could get me into one of the three-room guestrooms accessed by a palatial staircase or a steam-punk elevator. None of which made me salute-worthy.

The man's spine straightened, and his heels nearly clicked. I awkwardly nodded to his salute and flagged down one of Mumbai's famous black-and-yellow cabs. To my relief, the driver turned on his meter. The day before a driver had refused to do so, intending to charge me more than the going rate, and I demanded he stop to let me out, but he wouldn't. I demanded to be treated equally, like a local. Why should I pay more? Why should I be treated differently? I had threatened to jump out, had my door open and everything. He called my bluff. I wasn't going to jump out of a moving car because of $1.

The driver ...