A hostel room is a bed, a desk, a cupboard and a wall, and every other room on the floor is identical. Whatever goes on that wall is the only thing that makes it yours.
Three constraints shape the answer, and none of them applies to a normal room.
The three constraints
1. You are not allowed to damage the wall. Most hostels charge for it, and the paint is usually distemper, which comes away with almost any adhesive.
2. It has to come down at the end of term. Everything goes into a bag and travels, twice a year, for three or four years.
3. The room is not yours. Somebody else lives there in June, and you may not be in the same room next year.
What follows
String, not tape. Twine between two small fixings, with clips. Two fixings instead of thirty adhesive points, everything comes down in ninety seconds, and the prints survive the journey home. Polaroid wall layouts →
Laminate them. ₹3 a print — ₹90 on a pack of thirty. They are being packed, unpacked, repacked and handled by everyone who visits the room. This is one of the clearest cases for it. Lamination on polaroid prints →
Thirty is right. A hostel wall is small. Sixty prints on it is wallpaper.
What to put up
⚠️ Home is not the answer, or not only.
The instinct — for a parent especially — is family photographs. Those matter, and they are also the ones that make the first month harder rather than easier. Homesickness at week three is not helped by a wall of the house.
What works is a mix, and the ratio matters:
| Roughly | What |
|---|---|
| A third | School friends — the ones who scattered |
| A third | Family, home, the room, the dog |
| A third | Blank space, or things: places, a bike, a band |
The school-friends third is the one that gets pointed at by everyone who comes into the room, which is the actual social function of a hostel wall. Gifts for starting college →
If you are sending them to someone
Post to the home address before term starts, not to the hostel. Hostel deliveries fail for the first month — room allocations change, the courier cannot find the block, and the parcel sits at a gate.
5 to 14 days from order to doorstep, 5 to 12 to Delhi NCR, dispatched every Monday.
What it costs
| 30 prints | ₹270 |
| 30 prints, laminated | ₹360 |
| Twine and clips | Whatever a stationery shop charges |
Flat ₹70 delivery anywhere in India.
At the end of the year
The part nobody plans for, and it decides whether the wall survives to a second year.
Take them down in one go, not as you pack. Prints removed one at a time over a week end up in four different bags and half of them are lost.
Keep them flat, in a book. Not loose in a rucksack. A print that travels loose comes back bent at the corner, and a bent corner is permanent.
Photograph the wall before you dismantle it. The arrangement took a term to arrive at and you will not remember it. It is also, at the point you are leaving, the photograph of that room you will actually want.
Frequently asked
What should I put on a hostel room wall? About a third school friends, a third home, and a third other things. A wall entirely of home makes the first month harder.
How do I hang photos without damaging a hostel wall? Twine between two small fixings, with clips. Adhesive lifts distemper, which is what most hostel walls are painted with.
Should hostel prints be laminated? Yes. They are packed and unpacked twice a year and handled by everyone who visits.
How many prints for a hostel wall? Thirty. The wall is small and sixty reads as wallpaper.
Where should they be delivered? The home address before term starts. Hostel deliveries fail for the first month.
Part of our guide to polaroid prints. See also: polaroid wall layouts and gifts for starting college.
Thirty prints, ₹270: Polaroid Pack · Custom polaroid prints