For once, Calvin and Hobbes and the discussion on Bangalore’s roads got no hits on ‘Bulletin Board’ ? Infosys Technologies’ in-house website. A two-line obituary was hogging all eyeballs. It read, “With profound grief, we announce that Ajay Shanbag passed away in Nashua, US, on July 12, 2005. He worked in the Bangalore office of Infosys. We pray to God to give strength to his family and friends.”

The news sent shock waves in the software firm office. After all, Shanbag was an athletic, high-spirited 25-year-old. Life was going good for him. He was on a year-long project in the US. He drove a Honda Accord and lived with friends in a plush suburban apartment. The obituary didn’t mention what went wrong. A link to a local Nashua newspaper, Nashua Telegraph, gave the answers. The newspaper report said Shanbag died of a cardiac arrest.

It was 8.50 pm on a Sunday. Shanbag was driving home from work when his car smashed into an apartment block along the road. The Honda’s engine revved before it hit the wall. The police said Shanbag’s foot hit the gas pedal as he collapsed behind the wheel and the car swung out of control. He was declared brought dead in hospital.

Shanbag’s is not a one-off case. A survey conducted by a Chennai-based association of doctors ? Mitran Foundation ? found that eight IT professionals in the city died of cardiac arrests in the last six months of 2004. “They were all below 35. Six of them did not have a family history of heart trouble,” says Dr Dwarakanath Raman, president, Mitran Foundation.

Clearly, the mouse potato existence is beginning to take its toll. Physical and psychological stress has become the flip side of the software success story ? where 20-somethings earn seven-figure salaries, treat the US as second home and call the boss by his first name.

Mitran Foundation’s recent nationwide study of IT professionals ? which covered 4,000 techies in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Chennai and Mumbai ? found that one in every 10 software employee suffers from stress related ailments like high blood pressure, cholesterol, migraine, back pain ? the list runs into 18 problems.

Says Raman, “Till four years back, the medical profession was considered the most stress-prone. Now techies have taken the number one slot.”

In the last one year, the preventive healthcare department at Bangalore’s Sagar Apollo Hospital recorded a three-fold increase in the number of software professionals seeking treatment. “About 70 per cent people in the industry find the job stressful,” says Dr Sudha Menon, head of the department.

Bangalore-based counsellor Dr Ali Khwaja has to work nights to handle patient in-flow. “In two years, there’s been a 100 per cent increase in patients from the software sector,” he says. And the numbers are growing, he adds.

The globetrotting and fat salaries of software jobs seem to be losing sheen. Take the case of Samir Srinath, a 24-year-old software developer working at Infosys Technologies’ Bangalore office. These days, his agenda at work is to find ways to dodge his project leader. He’s only avoiding receiving the marching orders to go on a six-month project to the US.

When Srinath joined Infosys two years ago, his dream was to head West. The chance came soon enough. And that’s where the dream ended. “We went home twice a week, carried our toothbrush in our pockets and took cat naps on the office carpet whenever the brain went dead.” Back in India, Srinath was diagnosed with high blood pressure. He’s now on life-long medication.

Stress has psychological spin-offs as well. “Depression and anger have become commonplace. Since anger cannot be taken out at the workplace, it finds a vent on roads and at home,” says Sagar Apollo’s Menon. She had a patient who said his five-year-old daughter would shut herself in her room every time her father returned from work. “He was angry all the time at home. It finally broke his marriage,” she says.

Experts say stress is the obvious outcome of a job that involves long work hours, irregular timings, high pressure and constant deadlines. To help employees cope with stress, Chennai-based software firm, Covansys Software, organises movie screenings and outings. “But few employees attend these programmes. They say they can’t take time off from work,” says the training manager.

“That’s because the industry is very performance oriented,” points out Menon. Vijaylaxmi Raja, assistant manager, HR, at Chennai-based Birla Soft India, agrees. “IT professionals have no choice but to work 12 to 15 hours a day. The client-lists of IT companies are increasing and often clients can be very demanding. In-house hiring doesn’t happen equally rapidly. So employee work-load increases,” she says. While Raja believes monotonous work and deadlines cause stress, Bangalore-based software professional, Arvind Sankar feels India’s brand image of a cost-effective software destination is the cause of all techno-stress. “India’s USP is its cost advantage. To cut costs, companies work with a shoe-string staff. This builds work pressure,” he says.

Sankar compares India’s work culture with the US’s ? where he worked for five years. “In the US, personal time is sacrosanct. I once asked a technical support staff to answer a query after work hours. He refused to help,” says Sankar. In India, it’s routine for techies to take calls from the US till late into the night and work on weekends. “It’s treated as a responsibility,” says Sankar.

The IT industry took the work-hard-earn-big culture to the Indian middle class. At 30, a software professional usually owns a flat, a few cars and goes for holidays abroad ? something his parents took a lifetime to achieve. “The change has been too dramatic. People don’t have the maturity to deal with it,” says Menon.

Menon also feels India’s young geeks are unable to strike a work-life balance. “They want to make pots of money and hang up their boots by 40,” she says.

It doesn’t work that way. One, plans of early retirement means working non-stop to build a suitable bank balance. Two, a lot of productive life is still left after 40 and it’s stressful to sit at home. “Everyone has plans of doing organic farming or social work. But it’s difficult to make a switch,” says Menon.

In 1999, 800 stress-related law suits were filed against software firms in the US. All were ruled in favour of employees. India has no such legal provisions. “Employees have to give a medical certificate and top it with constant reminders if they need a special chair. It is not provided as a rule,” says Sankar.

Sankar says software offices in the US are designed according to strict ergonomic specifications. “If a work station doesn’t suit an employee, he only needs to send a written complaint. Everything is changed to suit his needs.”

Sometimes, stress is self-induced. Sankar gives the example of bachelors, who prefer to stay in office than go home. “Offices offer air-conditioned surroundings, pantry, free coffee and broadband Internet connection,” he says. Infosys’ resort-like office campus in Bangalore also offers multi-cuisine food courts, pool tables, a gym and a swimming pool.

The Infosys development centre at Bhubaneswar conducted a time-management experiment recently. It passed a rule that for one week no employee was to stay in office after 5.30 pm. “The management found that work was getting done as before,” says Sankar.

The development centre has a new rule now ? employees need to obtain special permission to stay late in office.