Siddharth was online six to eight hours everyday making new friends in chat rooms. "I'd wake up every morning to at least 50-100 jokes forwarded by my online buddies. This was their way of cheering me up."

More importantly, the Net helped him understand more about the disease afflicting him. In many ways, Siddharth was already well informed before visiting his doctors. He even tried to hunt for others suffering from the same disease but was unsuccessful.

Now alright and ready to begin his next semester in college, he says, "If the Internet had not existed, I would have been prone to depressive mood swings. When I was online, I just didn't have the chance to mope around!" That was because he was too busy making a homepage for himself and his Dad, and winning prizes including diamond jewellery in online contests.

Today for those suffering serious illness the Internet can be a great source of comfort. From chat rooms to support groups, it is providing those bedridden with a new platform to connect to the outside world.

Besides, it helps families of patients to cope with the restlessness and mood swings of their wards. Like in the case of the Puris who were at their wit's end when their 14-year-old Karan was in bed for three weeks with fever and flu. They admitted that without the Net, they would not have known how to cope with their boisterous son: "He would sneak out of the house to meet his friends instead of sleeping. Then my elder son gave him a laptop to send email, chat with his friends and surf contest sites and that's how the next three weeks passed by peacefully."

Patients, especially students, use the Net not just to reach out to friends but also to help with homework, assignments and studies. Karan finished his mandatory summer homework online: "I used Geography Network and about.com to help me with my geography homework. Thus I didn't lose any marks when I joined school, and managed to do as well as my classmates."

Likewise Siddharth also used the Net constructively and prepared for his second year engineering exams. "I used the Net to correspond with my friends - get email updates about daily class work, assignments, notes and the syllabus. I also used the Net to understand most of my subjects. Any query that I had would either be emailed to my friends or posted on specialised sites and I'd get answers in a few minutes!"

The Web also prevented the disruption of a busy work routine for Vivek Dayal, Communication head of software firm Mphasis, when he had a hairline fracture two months ago. He stayed put and worked from home. "The Net helped me heal faster and feel more positive about my immobility. I worked more efficiently and was more charged about work," he says. The plus points: Working out of shorts and a T-shirt and feeling wanted as colleagues kept popping up on messenger to ask about his leg!

But being online also has its downsides. Says Amit Agarwal, software programmer, "It makes me mad when I'm ill and my bosses coolly tell me to take time off from office, but to send the reports via email! What the heck… Technology is good but not when you fall sick. Luckily, I don't have any of my office people on my instant messenger."

Agrees Namita Mehta who refuses to log in for fear of her bosses and peers finding out. "They're all on my instant messenger… So my problem is how to get online without them knowing it."

Another issue is that of getting addicted to the Internet. The Baligas complain that post his recovery, Siddharth spends over five or six hours online when at home.

Doctors, however, recommend the Internet. Dr Rajesh Shah, who is extremely Net savvy himself, says it works very well in most cases, "because emotional support from fellow patients is more important than medical support from doctors. Besides, having a more informed patient who knows about the disease makes it easier for the doctor as well."

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