Last Sunday I went and got inked. For the fourth time. :-)) This time it was kind of impromptu. Though the 18-year-old had been toying with the idea of us getting inked together for a while now, I had been putting it off each time. I believe you have to be in a certain frame of mind to get inked. Call it adventurous, call it creatively inspired, call it welcoming a new addition to your body or just-for-the-kicks frame of mind. A is in college now, and when she came home over the weekend I asked if she was game. Ofcourse, she was! The weather was perfect to get inked. Not too hot and muggy and not too cold. Bad idea to get inked in the summers. The sweat can mar it’s beauty. 

So off we went on a Saturday noon with her friend who very sweetly agreed to join us and be our saviour, if we were to cringe and cry. Arusha and I both knew what we wanted. I had planned mine almost 4 years back when I’d got my “humming bird” tattoo on the calf. It reads, “Carpe Diem”.  But I was unable to go ahead with the other one as it required a lot of time and this was on a short trip to Banglore, when we were returning from a holiday in Coorg. At that point of time, I believed Delhi didn’t have very good tattoo artists, so I, along with the DH got inked in Banglore. The DH got an Ahura Mazda that trails across his neck and shoulder-blades.

Well, so here we were in Gurugram, sitting at Funky Monkey, the tattoo studio and finalising our designs. Arusha already had the “script” in place. She just wanted two words written in Bengali, inscribed on her heart- “Kee Khushi” which essentially means “How Happy” It was a line my Mom had once said to her as a kid and stayed with her and she wanted it to be right there by her heart, for the rest of her life. Ma and Arusha are very close. Ma spent many years baby sitting and bring her up while I toiled at work.

I, however, wanted a detailed armlet. I have always had a thing for armlets and the design in my head was a wind chime with hanging butterflies. When I, along with Raju and the designer started putting together the final design, it turned out to be a bit different from what I had visualised, but simply perfect. A single medium sized butterfly with strings of chimes hanging out from two pretty creepers. And two small butterflies hovering over the creeper. 

Arusha’s was done in Ma’s handwriting, as she had kept a copy in her diary. It took barely 10 minutes for “Kee Khushi” to be inked on her.  She called her grandma all excited and gung-ho. Meanwhile, we got started on mine. Since the design was very intricate it took about two hours to get it done completely. I cringed in pain off and on, but kept chanting Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo to ease the pain. Arusha very sweetly like the last time, squeezed my hand and held it tight. She and her friend played some nice music also, to keep me distracted. But then if you want a tattoo you got to live with pain. No Pain, no gain! I hadn’t eaten since breakfast but who gets hungry when you have such an incredible adventure to undertake.

It was 5:30 PM and the three of us headed to Burger King to grab some junk for nourishment. I devoured a medium size Lamb burger which looked more like a XL burger. The tattoo was snugly covered in cling wrap after some vaseline application.

We returned home smug, complacent and pretty much over the moon. I kept preening like a peacock, showing off the tattoo to my DH and the 8-year-old. I’m so glad I finally have my armlet in place. “It’s very pretty”, so says Moi. Just that I’m not allowed to work out for two weeks. A week is already over, and I’m itching to get back to the saddle and cycle my way to the Aravallis. 

My current tattoo signifies, my love for nature, my first two tattoos that were done in Manila are the Ying and Yang. The  moon-stars and the Sun respectively. I am blessed and connected to be one with nature, also through my body art.

Tattoos aren’t for the faint-hearted. It requires guts, a streak of madness and some amount of pain threshold to get one done. But the whole process is fun and worth enduring. After all, it’s like decorating your hair with flowers or adorning your neck with a pretty neckpiece.

Hail Tattoo enthusiasts!!

Linking up with #MondayMusings http://everydaygyaan.com/let-go-of-heartache/ hosted by Corinne Rodrigues.

Also linking up with #mg http://www.reflectionsfromme.com/mg-link-highlights-living-fearlessly-authentic/ hosted by Mackenzie Glanville