Celebrating our cute HR’s birthday — and with her, our adorable Shashi Amma.
In India, this invisible divide is almost normal—so normal that no one pauses to question it.
She works in our home, but she cannot eat with us. She cannot use our washroom. She cannot sit on the chair. There are always these unspoken rules—quiet, firm, and deeply ingrained.
Then life took a turn.
I started working at Fujitsu, and for the first time, I experienced a completely different world. There, calling your senior “sir” was not the norm. People addressed everyone by their names—even the VP.
It was a cultural shock. For me, respect had always meant distance, formality, and hierarchy. But here, respect looked different—more equal, more human. The day I called my senior by his name for the first time, it felt unfamiliar… almost uncomfortable.
Years passed.
And now, nearly two decades later, I find myself in another workplace—another shift, another quiet shock. Here, hierarchy dissolves over lunch. It doesn’t matter whether you are a security guard, a maid, an office boy, a PA, or the finance head—everyone sits together. Food is shared. Conversations flow. No one is “above” or “below” at that table.
And I pause.
Because somewhere between “don’t sit here” and “let’s eat together,” lies a story—not just of workplaces, but of society, of conditioning, of how we learn what respect means.
Maybe the real question is not what culture is right or wrong.
Maybe it is this—how far are we willing to evolve?
Because the world is changing… and so are we.
Thanks for stopping by.
See you in the next read!
...Anu
Spill. Stir. Stay tuned As Not all drama belongs in court.
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