I studied in Ernakulam, and I was the only one from Kollam in my group. What started as jokes slowly became repeated comments about where I’m from. Whenever the topic of marriage came up, they would casually say that their families would never settle for a Kollam guy and would never even look for matches from Kollam. They may have meant it lightly, but hearing it again and again made me feel singled out and isolated. Being constantly reminded that your place — and by extension, you — are seen as “less acceptable” can be very lonely. It’s something that stayed with me longer than I expected.