Are you flying Brahmin Class or Untouchable Class?

I’ve had several days of flying on an airline that I had many miles on. Because of my miles they have me registered as a premier member and by some stroke of luck they decided to upgrade me on all flights. I remember at the beginning of the flight they announced that people in Economy class were not to come up and use our bathrooms and were not to move up into our extra seats. For half a second I imagined myself sitting smugly thinking about how I had paid more and so I didn’t have to feel bad about those poor cramped people in the back who had to wait in line for the Loo. But the irony is that I had used my miles to fly and I didn’t, in fact pay for my ticket at all (unless 150,000 miles with this particular airline is considered payment enough!). For two of the longest flights I happened to have a whole row of five seats to myself. It was wonderful, and was the first time I have ever really slept on a flight. But I did see some people from back in Economy peeking through our curtain to see just how good we had it up front. It got me thinking about classes. Growing up in 20th century America’s giant middle class, it is really only on commercial flights that we get a taste of the past and of what many other cultures accept as quite normal (that is not to say that it doesn't still exist to some degree in the US). Classism, stratification, the “have’s” and the “have-not’s”… The dilemma of the haves and the have-nots has always existed. It is human nature I suppose to separate “us” from “them”, to find differences either seen or perceived in the person in order to justify differences in treatment or situation.
It is especially ironic that I am thinking about this on my way to India. A country that has social stratification down to a science, from the Brahmin’s to the Dalits or untouchables, their system of “us” and “them”, “haves” and “have-nots” is so ancient, so deeply ingrained it seems almost natural. It will be interesting to see what I can learn, maybe it will make me more accepting of the fact that my return flight will likely be in economy class… with the “have-not’s”.