“That night, the barracks settled into the particular quiet of five strangers learning to share space. The sharing-space being the Indian hostel experience recycled: Karthik and Vikram had both lived in IIT hostels, the IIT-hostel being India's particular training ground for shared-space survival — the survival that involved negotiating bathroom time, tolerating snoring, managing the temperature (the temperature being the eternal hostel debate: AC on or off, fan speed 3 or 5, window open or closed, the debate being the democracy of discomfort).”