Hostel Life: Chaos, Camaraderie, and Cold Showers

Hostel life isn’t just a phase.
It’s a genre.

Somewhere between a comedy, a survival documentary, and a chaotic reality show, hostel life teaches you more than any classroom ever could. It’s where strangers become family, the mess menu becomes your biggest enemy, and sleep becomes a myth.

The Great Roommate Roulette

You walk in with two bags, mild anxiety, and a smile.
Your roommate is already there; unpacked, headphones in, and suspiciously quiet.

You exchange polite hellos and silently wonder if you’ll get along… or spend the year plotting each other’s slow downfall over stolen things and noisy late-night calls.

Spoiler alert: You’ll bond over toothpaste, tears, and Instagram reels.

The Adjustment Phase

Week one feels like a social experiment.
You learn to bathe in under five minutes.
You learn that “mess food” is a feeling, not a cuisine.
You learn that someone will always be screaming in the corridor and it’s best not to ask why.

You also learn: there’s no such thing as privacy. Or peace.

The 2 AM Philosophical Society

Nights in a hostel have their own rhythm.
One minute you're all revising notes, and the next, you’re lying on the floor discussing whether time is real.

Someone’s making Maggi by borrowing someone else’s kettle.
Someone else is crying over an ex.
And someone’s editing a reel at full volume.

It’s a strange, beautiful kind of chaos.
You think you’ll remember the exams. But really, you’ll remember this.

The Mess Chronicles

Every hostel has That One Dish the mess serves with alarming confidence.
Oily parathas. Suspicious sambhar. Undercooked pasta that somehow tastes like detergent.

But you still show up plate in hand, expectations low, salt shaker ready.

Because the mess isn’t about the food, it’s about the gossip, the laughter, the unplanned birthday songs, and that one person who always takes four gulab jamuns.

The Bitter-Sweet End

One day, it’s the last day.

The walls are bare. The fairy lights come down. The wardrobe you once couldn’t close now looks too empty.

You hug your people. You promise to stay in touch.

You take a final walk around the corridors that drove you mad and realize you’ve never loved a place this much.

What Hostel Life Actually Teaches You:

How to survive with ₹73 and a half a packet of Hide & Seek
How to make 2-minute Maggi in exactly 37 minutes using borrowed utensils
How to share silence and still feel seen
And how to turn a tiny room with peeling paint into your version of home
So if you’re living it right now, breathe it in. The noise, the mess, the madness.

Because one day, you'll miss even the worst parts.
(Okay, maybe not the bathrooms. Never the bathrooms.)