I was very confused whether or not to write about this as Egonomics was dedicated solely to my experiences with self, learning from the people I meet and stories from running some long distances. However, the sequence in which the recent events unfolded, I felt like taking this step and write about something I believe many of you, reading this, would find immensely offensive. Hence, I open myself to serious discussion as I do NOT carry any prejudice. I’m as confused as I was three days ago when a friend of mine shared a post on Facebook about a meeting next day at Lady Sriram College of Delhi University during Lunch for the future plan of action against alleged “Semen-filled-balloons”. At first, I didn’t believe if that could be possible, so I started some basic search on the internet and the incident was already in media reports. Before we go any further into this issue, here’s a quick tutorial on “How to make Semen filled balloons”
Step 1: One of the possible ways of getting semen are sperm banks. But, that’s going to be costly. So, one must masturbate to get a free supply. But, then it is not enough to fill a balloon as single ejaculation would be 3-5 ml. Average volume of a balloon is approximately 200 ml. So, one might have to ask friends for some help to completely fill the balloon.
Step 2: If step 1 is half successful, one can add water to fill the balloon.
Step 3: Fling the balloon on the person they want to target. Meanwhile, I’d pray they land in prison.
Holi is celebrated for a reason. Do a basic google search and one will find tons of pages already with a lot of information about its religious and cultural significance. However, sadly the festival has evolved only to get worse in recent times, to an extent that forces are required to be deployed for security and consequences may result in banning the festival, if left unchecked. I personally hate the festival for obvious reasons – open bullying, no control over hooligans, disrespect and largescale harassment of women in name of the festival which often includes throwing stuff like water filled balloons, chemical colors, mud, eggs, rotten tomatoes, animal waste and god knows what more which often extends to inappropriate touching and sometimes sexual assault. However, in the history of humanity, there has never been a reported case when someone has thrown “semen” filled inside a balloon for any reason. Not even towards their worst enemy, let alone a stranger. It’s not even unhealthy and unhygienic, but gross, immensely disrespectful, unethical, unacceptable, irresponsible, foolish, disgustful, outrageous, appalling, hypercritical, deprecating, disparaging, and possibly the worst form of harassment.
To immense shame for the nation known globally as poster-boy for preserving the culture and celebrating diversity where women are worshipped as goddesses, the series of alleged incidents got a lot of coverage by international media as well and this may well serve as the last nail on the coffin to have gender peace in this nation. Or will this serve as a beginning of a revolution? In my earlier post, I mentioned some possible ways on sensitizing children of their roles and responsibilities in a society that should be equal and compassionate, this incident served as a huge disappointment to me, personally and I’m aghast and deeply hurt, to an extent that I decided to write about it. I have grown watching my sister, her friends, my friends, their friends’ friends being molested in the name of the festival and this increases multifold when someone is new to the city and racially discriminated. Places like schools and universities become the primary targets of such sick souls who seek a sense of accomplishment and pleasure by hurting, ridiculing, disrespecting and assaulting others, generally women.
There are far too many to blame and a lot has already been said over the past years, but let’s reflect on the incident again. How ridiculous does the tutorial mentioned above sound? Basic biology suggests, it is impossible to fill a balloon with the semen of an individual. Collecting semen from multiple people is next to impossible. So, the only option left is Step 2 – to fill the rest of balloon with water. Human semen, generally, is a combination of water (90%), sperms, nutrients and coagulant and decoagulant proteins. As soon as semen is released, it is coagulated into a gel by semenogelin protein within 5 minutes. However, prostate-specific antigen breaks this gel into liquid again. Sperms do not dissolve in water and appear sticky gel initially but in 15-20 minutes become watery.
In the reported cases, the substances in balloons smelled different than water, was explained sticky and dried to something whitish in appearance over the dark surface. I wonder how easy was that to specifically identify the substance as semen, and without a thought of possible egg, that possess exactly the same properties. A balloon filled with egg, could that be possible? I was confused, so I did the experiment. Egg white barely dissolves in water, stays a little sticky, smells really weird and unlike an egg, a balloon filled with egg and water provides a far reach. I didn’t use egg yolk as it was very slimy and was not helping at all. However, an indiatimes report citing one of the ANI tweets confirmed that one of semen filled water-balloons was thrown by a girl, who was later asked to submit a written apology by her parents to the victim. Biologically, an egg-filled balloon makes far more sense than a semen-filled balloon, however, the confession as confirmed by ANI leaves me baffled – both socially (to accept that actually happened and was followed by half a dozen more cases) and scientifically (how is that even possible – to make and then be executed by a female).
I have no answer to this still – if people were actually flinging semen filled balloon on others which is just the last stage of reducing humanity to bottom beyond mythical hell? If those balloons were actually filled with semen, I’m immensely ashamed of that being a carrier of what earlier civilizations believed to be a part of the brain and culturally immensely significant. However, if they were not and actually were something else, like an egg, then this raises a serious concern to where we’d land in coming years on this gender gap. Workplaces, public places, educational institutions and even home are becoming unsafe so rapidly, that we are forced to make a decision, judgement and execution so quickly with little room for thought. Where I’ve a deep sense of empathic concerns for the victims of the heinous act, with last drop of optimism left in me I do keep a hope that this was a case of misjudgement. Otherwise, I’m afraid I have lost hopes that Mars and Venus would ever share a sense of compassion and honest concern in many many decades to come.
Feature Image: The Atlantic
