THE ART OF INK AND THE MODERN INDIAN ARTIST by Sukiran Singh
Everyone loved the idea of my new tattoo, as many people got curious and asked what it meant when I shared the story on my social media, apart from my mother. When I sent a picture of it to her on WhatsApp, I got no response to it, but within the next 5 minutes she gave me a call. I kept saying hello for a few seconds, when she finally responded and said ‘why are you covering all your body? Don’t you have enough already?’ (Mind it, not even 5% of my body is covered.) I’m quite close and unguarded with my parents. They know in advance, what happens in my life. Still, she took a long pause in her response, which showed her irrevocable dissent of my choice. Her discord is ignorant and originates from an unfamiliar mindset at best. I know for sure, it’s not her mindset that creates this conflict of discerning my choices, as she’s quite an open minded woman, and deep down understands how to respect others individuality, it’s rather the literate ‘illiteracy’ and a large cloud of ignorance she’s surrounded by, in form of the so-called society. I’m sure she accepts me for who I am, but this voice of ‘her son is doing this, her son is doing that’ is buzzing endlessly in her sub-conscious. There are many like her, who, under societal pressure of producing cogs in a machine, have forgotten that life as a human comes only once and one has a right to atleast make the small everyday choices of their lives, specially when there is no control over the big ones. And what is wrong with Tattoos? It’s a 6000 years old art form that humans can physically carry with them. ‘The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.’ Said Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest artists in history. Art brings serenity and pleasure to our senses and enlightens our monotonous, dull lives, even for a spec in time. Art can be anything - Painting, poetry, writing, and acting, even the lousy and stinking versions of pretend cinema that we see many times, in the name of entertainment. If one’s dopamine (hormone that induces happiness and pleasure) levels can increase watching the nonsensical family soaps, another has a right to choose their weapons of ecstasy. I’ll tell you what the problem is; obliviousness. The idea of the art of tattooing has changed in recent times, and pop culture has made it commercial. In India, the idea of commercial is quite different from the International scenario. In India,
58 M.IND MAG September 2018 Mindmag.media