Last month, I had my own Buddha moment — not in Bodh Gaya, but at a traffic light in Chandigarh’s Sector 37, during the morning rush-hour traffic.

My moment of enlightenment — I had always known that humanity is divided into antagonistic classes. But that day I felt the sting of contempt — the way the upper class look down on the “lesser” mortals.

My Maruti had barely grazed a white Range Rover. A tap most drivers dismiss. But a woman in her thirties, still in her night suit, erupted. “You don’t know the three-second rule?” she said loudly, followed by a sentence that cut deep: “Know your aukaat.”

It wasn’t about driving. It was about hierarchy. Her SUV demanded reverence; my modest Maruti had trespassed against its status. The dent was negligible, but humility wasn’t enough. She wasn’t

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