Not everything in life is simple and in particular; nuances matter very much when it comes to understanding other Cultures/Social Structures.
Anecdotes like yours really bother me because they sound so outlandish that their veracity cannot be taken on faith. Having spent a considerable part of my working life in the US, i can state that never once has the subject of Caste ever been a topic of relevance with my Indian colleagues i.e. it has never ever come up in any discussions, implicit or otherwise. None of my American colleagues knew much about it; and i have worked across a bunch of companies so the sample space is quite spread out.
Anecdotes like yours really bother me because they sound so outlandish that their veracity cannot be taken on faith. Having spent a considerable part of my working life in the US, i can state that never once has the subject of Caste ever been a topic of relevance with my Indian colleagues i.e. it has never ever come up in any discussions, implicit or otherwise. None of my American colleagues knew much about it; and i have worked across a bunch of companies so the sample space is quite spread out.