A very profession is associated with certain degree of hazards or dangers. This hazard could be of one or combination of physical, mental emotional or psychological nature. In earlier times, our forefathers used face mostly of physical dangers in their profession. There was  the need for clearing of forest patches of land for shifting cultivation .This is followed by a number of seasonal steps, from the selection of spot of the forest or the bushes for subsequent activities :burning, clearing, sowing the paddy seeds etc ultimately to harvesting and collecting to the paddy to home. The cutting down of the trees and bamboo was called ‘Lo vat’ It  was  considered to be  the most hazard part of the year long cycle of cultivation activities. It is often compared with the baby delivery by a pregnant woman which is a matter of death and life or happiness and sadness. The reason was very simple. To clear the selected spot which may populated  with bushes, tress of different huge and sizes and bamboos of different varieties  or creepers of all types, one has to use ‘Chem,’or big knife specially designed and shaped for this purpose. Then one also had to use axe”Heicha’.It it involves cutting down all those numerous varieties  of trees and plants, Some times it may involve climbing on the big trees and hewing the branches as felling the tree or trunk  is considered not economical compared with the labor involved and the physical space its log would occupy against scope  for cultivation of paddy. As such, one could always meet one kind of accident or another thereby often compared with the delivery of baby by a woman who may die  alone or  die along with the born baby in the process. Other activities including hunting do have their own hazards but may not be as hazardous as ‘Lo vat”.

Though many of our people are still engaged in ‘Lo vat’ activities, the younger generations due top higher level of education and change in the social-economic values and job opportunities, substantially have shifted to the towns and cities for better live hood. While some of them are able to get suitable Government jobs which of course is considered not very lucrative or attractive by the majority of them, large segment are  falling into the private sector employment. In the private sector the choice of ‘head start’ is not possible unless one with endowed with a degree of MBA or alike from reputed institutions. Most of our people naturally start from the tails in which the ‘Call centers’ or the BPO are the major employers. These jobs are of service oriented at global level; requiring duty hours in the nights than in the day time for a country like India. This result in basic clashes with the cultural and the genetic structure of people whose have been formed over generations to remain awaked and engaged in activities during daytime and rest in the night. This is causing considerable and immeasurable physical, mental and psychological tensions for the workers though the job and its remunerations may be exciting to them initially. The recent study conducted by the ‘Indian Sleep disorders Association’ on controlled  two groups ‘Working in the BPO/Centers’ and ‘ other normal profession’ has found the following startling facts[1]:

Note: This significant differences are largely attributed to the odd working hours which the biological structure of the body and the genes over the centuries are yet to get to adjusted. It is said than the body clock takes at least one week to 10 days  to adjust if one goes to USA or far east.

Looking at the members of  various christian fellowships in Delhi, one could with reasonable confidence conclude that the BOP/call centre workers would be the decisive majority of working members of these fellowships. In fact, we have had the unfortunate    experience of incident of deaths  due to suicides as well. The actual reason  is not known to the public at large. one could, however very well conclude that these are definitely contributed by  new life style and profession related tensions. People take extreme steps when they do not have ventilations of their psychological or mental tensions. These kind of cases are bound to increase  in the complicated city life. we can’t to avoid them. They are the diseases of civilized world. The alternative to avoiding these life situations would be going back  to the villages and remain backward and be poor. This choice is out  of question now. What should we be doing then?.

At individual level we shall not be able to do anything as this demands  involvement of professional expertise. If somebody encounters serious individual problem as listed above ,we would advice him or her to take help of professional counselors. Then our students’ organisations and the Welfare bodies do or can not do  much as their activities are limited to annual social meet or specific social issues. What is regularly available  to the people  free of cost is the Sunday regular services. The quality and structure of the service, though needs a lot of improvements tries to cater to the spiritual and emotional expectations and needs of the members. One should make it a point to attend it services. This gives the required ventilations , venting out the week long built up tensions and anxieties. One may be  advised that one must not miss the service, particularly when the timings  of most of the fellowships are in the afternoon and can be catched up even by the BPO workers .When one comes to the church ,one must talk to people, sing the hymns and  songs  loudly as one can, pray deeply and intensely, meet new friends and relatives and be relaxed as possible. The regular Sunday Fellowship service, therefore is the best ventilations for pouring out  professional pent ups for the time being. Our professionals must not miss and participate and involve themselves in its activities and programmes as many as they can. The advice is clear  and loud to every body.’ Don’t keep or bottled up your tensions. It will break you sooner or later. Ventilate them as many time and regularly as possible’.

[Article by Pu N. Neihsial (IDAS:1981) | First published in GOSPEL DAICHIM, Volume 4, Issue No. 12/ December, 2011, p. 3 | Reproduced with permission].