Every good school has a hostel attached to it for the residence of teachers and students, coming from distance place. Our school also has such a hostel.

It consists of a long one-storied building of twenty rooms open on all sides. Once of these rooms is for the superintendent, while the others are for teachers and students. There is a separate building for the kitchen and the menials.

We have to live a strictly regulated life in the hostel. At five in the morning rings a bell. We have to get up at once, ease ourselves and wash our faces. Then comes the morning tiffin which varies from day to day. The next three hours we devote to our studies. Some of the resident teachers go round our rooms and help us through our difficulties. After a little rest we have our bath and breakfast, and then we go to our classes. After school we get some substantial tiffin which also varies from day to day. The afternoon is devoted to physical exercise of some sort, often under the supervision of some of our Physical Instructors. On return to the hostel we first wash ourselves and then sit down at our studies. Our supper comes at about 9 p.m. after which we retire to bed. There are occasional variations in this programme; but the Superintendent and other teachers see to it that we do not indulge in any undesirable activity.

I always felt sick for home for a long time after I had first come to the hostel. My heart yearned for the loving touch of my parents and others and for the comforts I always enjoyed at home. But as time has passed on, I have begun to feel at home here. There is no want of friendship with all that it means. We are thirty boarders making up a family with the Superintendent as the head. If anyone falls ill, the hostel doctor comes in and the fellow-boarders give him all the care and attention he may require.

Hostel life has its advantages too. It gives us habits of self-help. We have to take care of our personal belongings ourselves, make up our own beds and live under strict control from morning to night. These are habits which I am sure will stand me in good stead in my future life.