To thecredit of a lonesome desi student in America of the '60s and '70s goes thesomber slogan "Advisor, Budweiser; Apartment, Department," coined to illustratea life circumscribed by drink and dissertation, home and college. There isn't anIndian grad student who does not remember his first winter in America(especially if he went to school in the Midwest or Northeast), the first trudgethrough snow to a grocery store (examining 400 brands of cereal, known back homeas 'cornflakes'), and the first disastrous experiment in the kitchen confectingrajma and roti from canned kidney beans and pitabread.

Many of those gradstudents are well-heeled successes today. It only takes a Single Malt or two tomake them schmaltzy with nostalgia. "Remember the time we made upma from Kraft'scream of wheat?" they'll recall, "...and how we drove 300 miles to pick up thebottle of Old Monk that Bunty had brought from India?" Before long the eveningwill be awash with recollections of campus life in the '60s or '70s when theystopped every dark skinned Hispanic woman in the fond hope that she'd be a desiand invite them for a home-cookedmeal.

It all began to change inthe '80s with the first buzz of the telecom revolution that brought down theprice of a phone call to India from dollars a minute to quarters, dimes, andeventually, cents. The '90s brought home Internet and email, putting pind just aping away. And in the first decade of this century, as dial-up rang in always-onDSL and cable, came webcams, videophones, myspace, YouTube andjustabouteverythingelse.com to bring home,home.

Today, a whole generationof desi collegians live in cyberia, especially in that ubiquitous hangout calledYouTube, which is quickly replacing the boob tube (TV) as chewing gum for theeyes. Never been to YouTube? Waste no time for a dekko, because, as a cyberdive, it is changing the way we work andplay.

Every Presidentialcandidate is campaigning on YouTube, circumventing expensive TV time and printspace. So are Brett and Lakshmi running for student body office in Stanford. Lawenforcement is posting clips to zero in on criminals. Criminals are scoutingclips looking for the next bigscam.

Media outlets now rummagethrough YouTube for news. Last week, one fan of American Idol went on YouTube todeclare she would starve herself till Indian-American contestant Sanjaya Malakarremained on the show, triggering off copycat announcements. A day later, the'starving-against-Sanjaya' story made news in mainstream media. Small wonder NBCand Fox have said they will pop up with their version ofYouTube.

For the desi crowd inUS, YouTube is a godsend. From sparkling moments of cricket to trailers oflatest Bollywood movies, from Guddu's birthday to puja at home, it's home toevery peep and prattle. Young dancers learning Bharatnatyam search for clipsfrom masters, as do fans nostalgic for classical music. Looking for Pandit RaviShankar's early forays into US, one finds someone has posted rare footage of themaestro playing at the Monterrey festival, a seminal 1960s concert that hasseldom been aired inpublic.

Today, technologyenables you to build an ethno-specific social life around the Internet.Communing in Cyberia, one can order Indian food and groceries online, ring inIndian movies and cricket, tattle with family, friends, and fiancee across sevenseas, and live virtually in a cyber ghetto. Lost on the Net, it's easy to escapewinter.

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