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> Whenever I traveled by train and chatted up with a co-passenger, almost surely they would ask my name and would never be satisfied with just knowing my first name.

What happens of they find out you’re a lower caste, so they just stop talking to you, talk down to you, etc.?

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I don't think any of those things are true. Indians in general are hyper "hierarchy" aware (not just with respect to caste btw). They just feel the need to know how to place you.

I'm also not lower caste (or particularly upper caste for that matter) and my parents were doctors, so my family was relatively well-off in a very, very poor part of India, so almost all other social indicators would tell them to place me higher in social status. So, the experience of others would vary.

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