South Asia Is a Universe With Its Own Gravity

Moving abroad didn’t just shift the landscape around me — it shifted me.

Every region has a pulse, but South Asia?

This place has a heartbeat that thuds through the soles of your feet. The chaos, the unspoken rules, the eye-contact etiquette, the aunties who can scan your entire life trajectory faster than TSA scans a suitcase… it’s all so surreal.

As a teen traveling alone, I floated above it, a feather, barely registering the machinery of society.

Now as an adult, I feel the weight of the expectations, the scrutiny, the cultural choreography I’m expected to dance with flawless precision.

And yet—

Part of me still loves that unmistakable voltage in the air.

That sense of being wrapped in a tapestry older than memory.

That whisper of home, even when it overwhelms me.

…the Macaroni and cheese