More work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Today, Bangalore is known around the world for being the IT capital of the country. However, the workforce that shoulders the responsibility is stressed out. Work pressure and family disputes often make them take extreme steps like suicide and even murder.In a tragic incident, a 31-year-old software engineer, Santosh Sarade, murdered his two-year-old daughter and committed suicide on May 18. According to the police, Santosh Sarade joined Infosys six months ago and since his performance at work was not optimum, he was asked to resign on May 16. This led him take the hasty step.On April 17, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, J Prabhakar who was working as a technical architect with Appnomic Systems Pvt Ltd in HAL Industrial area on Old Airport Road committed suicide by cutting his wrist and then jumping into a lake. In his death note, he mentioned that because of the workload, he couldn’t finish his project on time and that’s why he decided to end his life.A lot of Bangaloreans have decided to stay single so that they can concentrate more on their profession.“I got married five years ago to a techie working in one of the leading companies. I thought it would help us financially if both of us were earning. Because of too much work pressure we were not getting time for each other. During weekends I wanted to take rest and she wanted to go out. We started arguing and finally ended up divorcing,” says Srinivas KP, a techie working in IT firm.Thirty-seven-year-old Madhan Reddy has decided not to marry as he believes that he can’t balance professional and personal life, “I am not going to marry. I have seen many people who got married and can’t balance life. I want to achieve big. If I marry I won’t be able to do that as I will have to spend time at home too,” he says.Even though Prabhakar  who committed suicide decided not to get married, he was overcome by depression. “I used to tell him to get married. But he told me that if he marries he won’t be able to balance his profession and family. He chose to concentrate on his profession as he was too serious about work,” recalls his colleague.On the techies’ behaviour and lifestyle, Bhaskar Bangera an HR professional with an IT company says, “Bachelors share their problems with friends, but married men/women don’t generally share their problems with others. Most of the time, it is the married people who commit suicide. We keep a tab on the mental state of the techies. If there is any problem, we don’t sack them immediately. We give time and try to solve their problems.”Advocate G R Mohan says, “Because of stress, people can’t handle work, and they attempt such crimes. If both the husband and the wife are working, then comes the ego problem. Also family attachments are much lesser in a nuclear family, and most of the techies live in a nuclear family system.”Dr B N Gangadhar, a psychiatrist from NIMHANS, says that homesickness also contributes a lot to stress. “If we look at the suicides, most of them are not people from Karnataka or Bangalore. They feel lonely. Homesickness is the main problem here. Companies should create a homely atmosphere instead of treating them as just employees. Companies should understand the employees personally as well as professionally. Most of the techies that come to me have problems with work. The HR department should  help them provide accommodation among other things,” he says.