Some companies in Technopark are conducting classes in music and dance for their employees
Long working hours and crammed work schedules are a reality for most techies. A reason why some companies have introduced stress-buster activities such as fine arts clubs and cultural activities, in addition to wellness programmes.
Many firms in Technopark encourage employees to nurture their innate talent in music, dance and fine arts. For instance, Infosys has begun violin (Western) classes for their employees. “We have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5.30 to 8 p.m., for three separate batches. Currently, around 30 people are attending the classes,” says an employee with the company who is attending the class. He adds: “Only two in the group had any kind of prior training, that too in Carnatic style. The rest are freshers and joined the classes because of their interest in music. These classes are a welcome relief from our busy work schedules.”
Their instructor Paul Jose says he has an enthusiastic group of students. “It is true that many of them find it difficult to practise. Still, they all have an inclination to learn,” he says. The company plans to start guitar classes soon.
Infosys has around 22 active clubs, which include those dedicated to dance, music and theatre.
Allianz Cornhill conducts guitar classes now, attended by 20 employees. Two of the stuents of music are Sujamol Rajan and Thomas Joy who are passionate about music. Thomas says: "It is great to balance life's passion with work."
Brimming with activities
UST Global has an active dance club and music-related activities. The dance club, going strong for the last five years, has 30-50 members at any point of time. “We have a trainer (Arun Nandakumar) coming in every week. Even if some employees drop out owing to transfers, we always get new members,” says Sthanu Thambi, accounts manager, who has been involved in the activities of the club. In fact, Bailemos, the annual dance fete, is an integral part of the company's annual calendar. “We also have training classes for the keyboard and the guitar. Some 10 to 15 people have joined the classes, which are after office hours,” he says.
Dance has a lot of takers among the techies, That is what motivated Natana, a cultural club of Technopark, to start dance classes for the employees. It has joined hands with city-based professional dance school Xtreamers to offer training in hip-hop, salsa and Western freestyle.
“As of now 15 to 17 people have registered, all of whom are members of Natana's dance troupe. Those who are not members of Natana can also join. Many are waiting for Tech-a-Break to get over since they all have been busy with rehearsals for their respective companies. We plan to have 25 people at a time,” says Divas Sadasivan, an office-bearer of Natana. They plan to have dance classes three days a week; participants can opt for a timeslot in the afternoon or after office hours.
Keywords: stress-buster activities, art forms, stress relieving
In India, in many families girls were taught music as an aratistic expression. This served as a breaking of monotony. They had all play, fun, music, studies, etc. No-a-days boys and girls spend half a day roughly 9-10 hours at work place and what was taught at house/schols is now bing tautht at workplace to relieve them from work-strress!! A company like Infosys is conducting violin classes in Westers Music and not in Indian classical music! The company was born in India, has its main office in bangalore, India, its CEOs are Indians and we are slowly giving foreign culture tutions to them! Really wonderful. we have learn from Japanese, who never forgot their roots of culture.
Interesting to note that all the art forms described are western. Is that the preference
of the people?
Let Techies work 8 hours per day , sleep well , take some excessive and
spend more time with family, that itself is a stress busters.. nothing
require more than family care .. Our companies give lot of work that
exceeds 8 hours and treat humans as machines to work all the
nights..Lets educate companies, managers..
who are these techies? what kind of stress they have?
what about people(scientists) working in fundamental researches across
the globe do they have no stress?
reality is not this,you can't find any company in technopark who working
in the core technology building.
illiterate article writer just make some gimmick(similar is quoted from
from justice Kadju)
After continuous hard work it is necessary that some rest for the employees for maintain their mental and physical health.Most of them avoid it
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