This is the fifth time I’m sitting down at my desk (if I can call this rusty table that) to start writing this piece. But there’s another knock at my door and when I open it, two of my friends walk in and make themselves home on my bed. One of them asks me for the packet of chips lying on the table, and then the document is all but forgotten. The many pairs of footwear outside the door attract more people and there we are, gossiping and cackling until someone shushes us from a few rooms across.
At any given time, this hostel is filled with peals of laughter, doors slamming, and someone singing at the top of their lungs. If not that, then someone is blasting music without a care in the world, only to see a message on the WhatsApp group telling them to please shut up, it’s quiz week. It’s been two offline years for me in insti and I thought, why not write about the hostel, something that ties so many of us together and is the subject of quite a few smail threads? From monkey menace to washing machine woes, there’s always something to complain about.
Most of us have a love-hate relationship with our hostels. There are some who are always holed up inside their rooms and then those you can count on to never be anywhere in the vicinity. The moment I come back to insti and have to face the dump room chaos, there’s nothing more I want to do than hop on the next train back home. The garish pink walls and the stupid ceiling lights outside the hostel don’t make things any better. But once I manage to drag the luggage, the mattress and god knows what else to my room and unpack a little, my room begins to look a little inhabitable. And then there are the grinning, sweaty faces of friends I haven’t seen in a couple months and it doesn’t seem so bad all of a sudden. Cut to the end of the semester, when I am forced to empty my room (well, thanks for that, CCW), the room is stripped bare, leaving only the memories it holds all of it – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Hostels are also spaces that make you feel full of life and lonely at the same time. You get to know people while waiting for your laundry to finish or in the lift because they are humming a song you love. These are friendships that do not make sense out of context and you both know you are not keeping in touch after college, but you still have fun. Everyone’s helping each other out, and there’s always someone lending and borrowing a kettle, an iron box, and any tiny thing you can think of. There’s also people stealing stuff (RIP my editor’s bucket*) – it’s the mattresses that are usually the victims of this at the start of the semester. And then it’s some event in insti, and every door nearby is at least slightly ajar and there are five people in one room, each fixing the other’s eyeliner, dress, or hair.
But there are also moments when you just want to curl up in a ball in your room and shut the world out. You want to watch something (if the LAN Gods are feeling generous enough) to take your mind off of the pressure, the stress, and all the existential crises this institute puts you through. On the other hand, there are the moments where your room feels like a jail cell and the hostel itself is closing in on you, and you would do anything, anything at all to get out of there and breathe fresh air.
It is this chaotic space that shapes our transition (maybe just a teeny bit, or maybe a significant chunk) from a starry-eyed freshie to a jaded senior who has seen it all. And as someone who is smack in the middle of this transition, it’s a nice feeling to be able to look back and smile while also looking forward to whatever the future holds.
*At the time of publication, the bucket no longer remains stolen, she has found the bucket in front of some random person’s room in a random adjacent corridor. Article 19 sincerely thanks you all for your sympathies and well-wishes.
Edited by Amirtha Varshini V C
Article 19 