"Disrespect".

I hear the word a *lot* around here. It's a novel feeling, because while the society I come from is big on respect, it is a thing that remains largely inarticulated. No one bandies the actual word about. There is little talk about being respectful or feeling disrespected, or even about children being disrespectful--a favourite theme of most grown-ups. On the event that the latter is discussed, the behaviour is usually labelled as rudeness, or more circumspectly, as "a lack of good manners". And I've absolutely never heard anyone say, "I feel disrespected". Or any variations thereof. If one has to demand respect, I was always told, that person probably does not deserve it. That respect isn't Halloween sweets. You cannot demand someone give you a fistful of it just because it pleases you to coddle your system with it.

I overheard a conversation on the metro the other day, where an uncle-type was telling off a late teen for disrespecting him... because said late teen refused to buy the brand of tyres uncle recommended. To classify rejection of advice as disrespect seemed ridiculous to me, but to the uncle it seemed perfectly legit. "I have been driving on these roads for more winters than you have been born [sic.]", he emphasised. "I know more about them than you do. I'm trying to share this knowledge with you. But I will not be disrespected in public because your roommate likes a different brand!"
I watched the man closely, and he reminded me of nothing so much as a tiny little frog puffed up with an inflated sense of it's own importance, just at the verge of bursting with a messy wet "PLOP!" He inspired amusement and condescending pity, but never 'respect' (as I understand it).

Therefore I get the feeling this American 'respect' is a different beast from the one we find back at the tropics. It's not the thing we dutifully offer up to our, say, school teachers--the ones that taught us our alphabets and numbers and the ones that screamed us through differential calculus. In fact, I get the feeling school teachers don't command much respect in the US at all. Anyway. The point is that in India there are certain categories of people that command respect by sheer virtue of their categories, and this respect is a sort of public demonstration of "looking up to", even if there is no actual feeling of respect involved. In the US, on the other hand, I think 'respect' has got more to do with protecting one's rights to whatever (validating one's ethnic identity, emphasising one's individuality, etc.), and making sure no one points and laughs or gets nasty while said rights are being exercised. Again, such observances of 'respect' do not necessarily demand the observer actually support such rights ideologically, merely that he keeps his toes off other people's territory. Or so I think, anyway. I'm not sure about the 'respect' dynamics here yet. And yet I have already, according to my American acquaintances, experienced this 'respect'--or lack thereof--first hand. This morning, in fact. And at a university office, no less.

So I walk into a campus office for the third time in a row, because I need to put my name down on a list. The first time I went, I was asked for my passport. I went back with my passport, and was asked for my social security. This was the third time, and I was armed with my passport AND my social. Confident that the matter would be dealt with in a few minutes, I approached the undergraduate student employee behind the counter. She asked to see my I-20. I confessed I wasn't carrying mine, it being a valuable doc. and all, and promised to return (yet again). However, I asked her for a check-list of *all* the things I would need, since I did not wish to carry my passport, I-20 and social security card for a fifth trip. This was when the episode truly began. First, the girl merely repeated herself slowly and clearly, as one does to the deaf or the mentally deficient: "Look. You don't have your I-20. We need your I-20. Just come back with your I-20, and we'll do it."

I should probably have left it at that and left altogether, but one's patience wears thin after three failed trips, especially if they're no fault of one's own. So I asked if my university ID would suffice, since it was issued after my I-20 was scrutinised. At this the girl threw her hands up in exasperation.

Girl: Okay. Do you speak English? Or should I get someone to translate? Because clearly I'm not getting through to you. Before I give you any money [because my father is the University tsar, of course, and all it's money is hidden under my bed], I need to know that you are not here illegally and that you have the legal right to work in America.

At which point I decided I should perhaps seek out an employee actually in possession of her mind, so I gave the girl a friendly nod and started walking carefully away, not turning my back on her.

Girl: uh, excuse me! Yeah, I need to know: are you already working for the university? Are you getting any money from us?
Rimi (from a safe distance): yes. I draw a regular stipend.
Girl (in a blend of sanctimoniousness and "take that!" manner): you should know that you are doing it illegally. You have no right to do that. If I wanted I could report you.

Unfortunately, I suffer from a secret hero complex. I could have walked away from this without a further word, because the dumb child's crassness rather amused me, but suddenly I pictured another international student who actually doesn't speak English too well, and who doesn't know that stipends are perfectly legal and are paid by a completely different university office. I pictured this person in my place, thoroughly harassed and confused because a minor clog in a major machine was power-tripping by virtue of having access to a daily stamp and a cluster of cheap office supplies. Bullies are my secret button.

I gave the too-thin brunette a thoughtful once-over. She looked back at me with--and I could be a wrong--a superior glint in her eye.
"Has anyone ever told you," I said in a slow, largely indifferent voice, "that you are a singularly unpleasant young woman?"
The singularly unpleasant young woman did an exaggerated imitation of dropping her jaw in shock, while managing to gasp out a "What???"
"I know you don't need a translator for that," I continued in an indulgently reprimanding tone, "because I speak rather a classy version of your language. Now, I'm going to be back tomorrow, and you will manage to make yourself unavailable when I am here, because if I have to speak to you again, there might be unpleasant consequences."

And I left, this time turning my back on her, confident that I'd uprooted her venom-sack--if temporarily. I heard her say in a shocked voice to her colleague, "Did you hear what she said to me? Oh my god, she was like, so disrespectful! Okay, now I'm officially upset. Did you just hear the things she said?"

"In my country," I wanted to turn around and say, "respect has to be earned, not demanded. And you fail the qualifiers by a couple of thousand miles, cupcake."

But I didn't. This lily, I felt, didn't need that extra guilding.