Some lessons in life arrive quietly. At the time they appear trivial, almost mundane. Only years later do we realize that they were shaping our character in ways far deeper than we understood. When I was a student at a Scholars’ school in Srinagar around 2010 –11, one rule was simple and non-negotiable: after meals, everyone washed their own plates. At the time it felt like just another discipline of school life. Only later did I realize that it was teaching something bigger; responsibility for one’s own actions. More than a decade later, I find myself reflecting on that lesson in a different setting. At the college in Tamil Nadu where I now teach, students finish their lunch and quietly wash their own plates before leaving. Professors do the same. No one considers it remarkable. It is simply understood that the mess one creates is one’s own responsibility. Watching this everyday practice has made me think about a larger cultural question.

In many parts of our society, particularly within sections of the middle and upper classes, we grow up learning a very different script. Meals appear on the table prepared by someone else. Plates are cleared and washed by someone else. Rooms are cleaned by someone else. Cars are driven by someone else. Gradually, without anyone explicitly teaching it, a subtle psychology of entitlement begins to take root. Life starts to appear as something that should be organized for our comfort by the labor of others. At first glance, this may seem like a matter of convenience or economic arrangement. But the consequences are deeper than that. The habits we cultivate in private life often shape how we behave in public spaces. If someone else is always expected to clear our table, it becomes easy to assume someone else will clear our streets. If someone else........

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