The Hindu Business Line : <I>Yoga nidra </I>for BPOs

THE recent report of IT and BPO work environment driving youth to seek counselling help, out of frustration, boredom and fatigue, and even contemplate suicide, is a disturbing reminder that there is a forgotten, but dark, side to globalisation.

Opening up of job opportunities from call-centres at the lower end, to design and development centres at the top, has naturally been greeted with much joy, because it can change the lives of educated youth who would have otherwise swelled the ranks of the disaffected.

Where every young person's first job calls for celebration in middle- and lower-income families, a jarring note will be unpopular — yet strike it we must, if the lifestyle and the work take a toll of innocent lives.

The young person who earns Rs 8,000-10,000 today can live fairly well, more so since most are as yet unmarried and staying in dormitory arrangements in fraternal groups or with parents.

Nonetheless, the life is artificially high paced and regimented and the effects on mental and physical health are quite debilitating. Part of the reason is that in a BPO operation, it is the process that takes precedence by its very nature, over everything else. After all, one can understand the way the client company in the US or elsewhere must look at this. For them, anything that can be outsourced to a large mass of people outside their direct supervision must first be standardised and made as repetitive, and monotonous as possible before it can be transferred across the seas.

This implies that the job-holder in India ought to be capable of learning a method by rote and apply it day after day, without variance and no margin for error, much less any individual initiative. No wonder they are sick in body and mind. Left with no time to themselves, let alone relax, they seek their outlets in drink, drugs, or any deviant behaviour. Those working on more intelligent aspects of information technology per se are somewhat better off; their tasks require exercise of some ingenuity and skill although in a rather narrow mechanical groove. Their cousins in the low-tech jobs are less fortunate, their output per minute being the most sought after measure.

The youngster who has till recently been used to a rather carefree, lazy existence has to suddenly fall in line with a level of punctuality, quality consciousness and standard behaviour that baffles him (or her). Living independently, often for the first time in life, away from the cocoon of a parental home, add to the temptations.

The peer group does not always give them either the stability of familiar values or the reassurance of acceptance by a wider society. It is well known that sexual permissiveness and promiscuity are not unknown or even rare in this group.

On top of all this is the relentless pressure of working to an alien clock time. Since nothing much can be done about the demands of American capitalism, which marches to a different drum, we must organise solace centres of our own to redeem these lost youth.

These centres or quiet rooms within the premises of the workplace should allow stressed-out employees find some peace and quiet. They can practise a few minutes of refreshing yoga nidra, or progressive guided relaxation, accompanied by suitable soft music. This would release the negative energies, calm them and recharge them in body, mind and spirit — while costing them nothing in gym clothes or club fees!

(Feedback can be sent to srchander23@netscape.net)

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