When a man truly gives of himself

In lavishly-mounted Bollywood, a small-budget film on sperm donation created such a ripple this year that it catapulted a TV anchor-turned-small-time actor into instant stardom.

Ayushman Khurrana essayed with effortless ease the role of a young sperm donor in Vicky Donor , which shows him drawn to the act first through persuasion by a desperate fertility expert, and later by the lure of easy money.

While the box-office success of the movie, which weaves comic moments into the serious social issue of childlessness and sperm donation, is music to the ears of its maker, the actor surprised all when he revealed that he had, in fact, donated sperm way back in 2004.

“Sperm donation is nothing uncommon in India, but people choose to keep silent on it. I donated sperm eight years ago,” Khurana, now 27, says.

While Khurana is trending in showbiz and media circles, people are suddenly talking openly about sperm donation in a country where childlessness is often a cause of social tension, with women largely blamed for infertility even before their male partners undergo a test.

According to a 2011 study by Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences, infertility is rising fast in metro cities. There are an estimated 20 million infertile couples in the country.

Nearly half the cases relate to male infertility, according to the study.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences has found that the sperm count of a normal Indian adult male has dropped to 20 million per ml from 60 million per ml three decades ago.

Infertility treatment clinics and doctors report a rise in enquiries about sperm donation after the release of the film.

“I definitely think the movie has done our industry a lot of good. I won’t say sperm donation was a taboo, but it definitely was not as widely discussed before the movie. More donors are now coming forward,” says Rajeev Agarwal of Kolkata-based infertility treatment facility Care IVF.

On the flip side, however, he finds that “a lot of them wrongly believe the dramatisation in the movie showing the donor earning pots of money and receiving gifts etc.”

Microbiologist Ashok Patel of Ahmedabad-based sperm bank and research institute Indian Spermtech, too, is receiving more enquiries since the film’s release, but is unsure if it can make any real difference on the ground.

“It is not that easy to donate. It involves a legal procedure and medical tests,” he says.

Charulata Chatterjee, the lead embryologist at Dr Rama’s Institute for Fertility in Hyderabad, says the Indian Council of Medical Research prescribes screening criteria for potential donors. “If a person fits all that, he can be enrolled as a donor.” She finds that many donors come forward both for the money and as a social service.

Agarwal, too, finds that while sperm donation may definitely be a way of earning money, that usually isn’t the only motive.

“There is definitely an element of love and sacrifice involved too,” he says.

Donors are recruited through word of mouth and advertisements. They are usually aged between 18 and 35, he says. Graduates are preferred, as also those with local features.

The potential donor has to fill a detailed questionnaire on personal and family health, likes and dislikes, sexual preferences, and political and social views, followed by a general examination by a urologist.

A sperm sample is taken for microscopic examination, followed by a blood test for HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Thalassaemia and so on, says Agarwal, adding that only one out of ten tested people qualify as sperm donors.

And that is not all.

“A potential donor has to give sperm samples on a regular basis; each sample, after testing, is frozen and the donor has to come back after six months to test again for HIV.” The frozen sample will be used only if the donor again tests negative for HIV, says Agarwal.

Ruling out any differentiation on the basis of caste, creed or religion, Agarwal says samples are matched based on parameters such as blood group, height, and the colour of skin, eye and hair.

While the movie helped break the silence surrounding sperm donation, doctors also see a changing mindset among couples, many of whom now keep an open mind on the issue of male infertility.

“Some men have even gone on record saying that if the problem is on their side, why should the wife suffer. Counselling makes a lot of difference,” says Agarwal.

But things can get tricky if either spouse attempts to keep the other in the dark about the use of donor sperms.

“We strictly discourage such couples and tell them that we cannot proceed without the signed informed consent of the spouse,” says Agarwal.

Another tricky issue he faces is when the family offers to donate the sperm of the brother or father to help preserve the family lineage.

“This again is something we discourage both for social reasons and for the fact that we don’t do fresh [instead of frozen] donor inseminations.”