Boys’ Hostel DiariesCHAPTER 2
Forty Sweaty Boys. One AC Room. Nobody Had the Remote.
In summer, every floor of our hostel squeezed into one AC room. Forty boys, a full day of sweat, mattresses on the floor and a smell you could feel. We still fought to sleep there—because the alternative was printing yourself onto your bedsheet.
Previously on Boys’ Hostel Diaries…A recap by the writer
Our boys’ hostel ran on a timetable—school, PT, the ground, dinner, the study room—and we filled every gap in it. Food sent from home was written on the warden’s board, and whoever reached it first usually ate it. Four roommates shared shirts and trusted one almirah with an internal lock. And at night, a hidden kettle in a corner the cameras couldn’t see became our secret Maggi kitchen.
Forty boys. One room. One very tired AC.
The smell reached you before the cold did.
You opened the door of the AC room, and for a second you seriously reconsidered your life choices.
Then you walked in anyway, dragged your blanket to a free patch of floor, and lay down.
Because the other option was worse.
Four floors. Four AC rooms.
Our hostel had four floors. We lived on the top one—the fourth.
Every floor had its own AC room, and in summer, that’s where the whole floor slept.
Technically, nobody forced us. It wasn’t a rule. But somehow, every summer night, all the floor members picked up their blankets and walked to that one room.
There wasn’t even a rule about which room you used. A third-floor boy could sleep in the fourth-floor AC room if he wanted. Wherever there was space and cold air, you went.
The mattresses were laid out on the floor. You brought your blanket. That was the booking process.
Nobody had the remote.
Not us, anyway.
The warden, the gateman, or whichever adult was on duty came in and switched the AC on. We had no control over it. No adjusting the temperature, no switching modes, no negotiating.
We didn’t control the AC. We just lay in front of it and hoped.
Forty boys and a full day of sweat.
Here’s what a normal day looked like before we reached that room.
Shower in the morning. School. Back to the hostel. PT. Hours on the ground. Then studying.
By the time we headed to the AC room, we were sweaty, tired, and—let’s be honest—smelling.
Now multiply that by thirty or forty.
Each floor had around thirty to forty students, and the AC room could fit about forty. One AC, maybe two, against forty boys who had been running around all day in peak summer.
The AC never stood a chance.
It was cooling the room. We were heating it back up.
So the room smelled like hell. Every night.
And every night, we slept there anyway.
The other option: the ceiling fan.
You could skip the AC room and sleep in your own room. Nobody stopped you.
But our rooms had ceiling fans. Only ceiling fans.
No cooler. No table fan. Nothing.
And when the light went off at night, the ceiling fan stopped too. Then it was just you, the heat, and the darkness.
Our photocopy on the bedsheet.
In the morning, you woke up and looked at your bed.
Your whole body was printed on the bedsheet—in sweat.
The exact position you’d slept in. Arms, legs, the curl of your back. A full outline, like somebody had photocopied you onto the sheet overnight.
We laughed at it every single time.
No camera needed. The bedsheet recorded exactly how you slept.
Proof of a summer night under a ceiling fan.
Once you’ve seen your own sweat photocopy, a smelly AC room starts to look very reasonable.
The race for the spot under the AC.
Inside the AC room, every spot was not equal.
The best spot was right under the AC.
Everybody knew it. Everybody wanted it. And there were only a few of them.
So the moment it was time to go, it turned into a race.
We ran. We pushed. We kicked. Friendship was temporarily suspended.
Whoever reached first dropped their blanket and claimed the spot. Everybody else got whatever was left—further from the cold, closer to the smell.
Friendship ended at the AC room door.
The best part came after we lay down.
Once everyone had settled—whether under the AC or somewhere near the wall—the room didn’t go quiet.
Forty boys on the floor, side by side, meant forty people to talk to.
We gossiped. We teased whoever was easiest to tease that night. Somebody said something stupid, and the whole room picked it up.
It was hot, crowded, and it smelled terrible.
It was also one of the most fun places in the entire hostel.
Worth it.
When I think about those summers now, I don’t really remember the cold air.
I remember carrying my blanket down the corridor. Running for the spot under the AC. The smell hitting me at the door. Forty boys talking long after we were supposed to sleep.
And waking up, on the nights I didn’t make it to the AC room, to find myself printed on the bedsheet.
Next chapter: morning PT—and the washroom, which we used as our escape plan.
A little conversation.
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