A normal Tuesday in a Kota hostel. No motivation, just the schedule.

I'm in Kota. Second year of JEE. People keep asking me what it is like. Here is a Tuesday. No quotes, no sunrise photos.

05:45  alarm. second alarm 05:50. up.
06:30  breakfast. poha or paratha. same cycle every week.
07:30  class: physics
10:30  class: maths (15 min break in between)
13:00  lunch at the mess
13:30  sleep 30 minutes. non negotiable.
14:15  self study: yesterday's practice sheet
17:30  walk. 20 min. phone stays in the room.
18:00  chemistry self study
20:30  dinner
21:15  error log. every wrong question, why it was wrong.
23:00  lights out

That's the day. It is the same on Wednesday. Sunday has a test instead of class. Sunday evening you look at your number and then Monday you pretend you didn't.

The room

Two beds, two cupboards, one study table you share, one window facing another window. If you're lucky it is a wall you can't see through and a tree. I got the tree.

My advice: when you look at a hostel, go at 8 pm, not at 11 am. In the morning every hostel is clean because people are in class. At night you hear the real noise. Where the water pressure drops. Whether the corridor light stays on.

Roommate matters more than the building. My first roommate talked in his sleep about integration. I'm serious. He said "limits, limits" for months. I got used to it. Then he left in January and I missed it.

The mess

Food is on a weekly cycle. Monday dal, Tuesday rajma (I'm serious), Wednesday something with paneer that's mostly gravy. Sunday there is a sweet. People live for that sweet.

It is fine. It is not bad, it's just the same. After four months you stop tasting it. You eat to fill the tank. I think this is why hostel kids get ill in exam season. Not a big thing, but you must buy fruit on your own. I stay away from outside oily food in the week and allow myself one on Sunday.

Mess hygiene: look at the kitchen once before you pay anything. Not the dining hall, the kitchen. If they don't let you see it, that's your answer.

The silence

This is the part nobody puts on the poster. Nobody is rude here. Everyone is polite. Everybody is also lonely, and everybody is pretending to be fine.

In the corridor people say "hey" and go back to the room. After 10 pm it's so quiet you can hear a pen. And sometimes you hear someone crying and you don't knock because you think they want privacy. I've been that guy, on both sides. Now I knock. Once. If they don't answer, I leave a tea outside the door. It's a small thing and it has worked twice.

People leave. In the first three months two beds in my corridor got empty. No goodbye. One day a bag is gone. Someone said "he went home." That's all you hear. It makes you sit with your own decision for a while: why am I still here?

My answer is simple. I'm here because I decided to be here, and I can leave if I decide to leave. That's different from being stuck. When I remember that, the room gets bigger.

What I do to stay sane

• Walk at 5:30 pm, phone in room. Twenty minutes. I notice the sky. Even if it's grey.
• Call home on Saturday. Not every day. Every day becomes a report. Saturday becomes a conversation.
• Three friends. Not thirty. Three. We sit on the terrace after Sunday's test and talk about anything except marks. Mostly cricket and bad jokes.
• The error log. Not about sanity, but it stops me from feeling like I'm wasting days. I can see progress in my own handwriting.
• I don't compare ranks in the corridor. If someone asks, I say "ok-ish." Rank talk poisons the tea.

Is it worth it?

I don't know. Honestly.

Some people do better at home. Some need the system and the rules, and they're better in a place like this. Kota is a place, not a rank. If you can study at home with a plan and one good teacher, you do not need to move 600 km to prove you're serious. If you can't study at home because of noise, distractions, a house with no desk, then it is a real option, and it is fine to choose it.

Numbers if you ask: my hostel with mess is about ₹11,000 a month. The rooms differ a lot. Fees for the course are separate. And money for the first year is gone before you start, so plan the second year honestly too.

That's it. A Tuesday. Not a story. But if you're reading this at 11 pm thinking about going, at least you have a schedule now.