I strain my eyes to see the details of the Celtic circle on my friend’s upper back and the compass she flaunts on her ankle. It’s addictive, she tells me, as I try to imagine the pinprick that caused the ink to seep through her epidermis and alter her appearance. It’s astounding that in a matter of hours she has completely managed to change the way people perceive her.

They say the art you own is a window to your soul and how much truer would that axiom be in the case of body art. Humans make no bones about their narcissism. While some rely on ensembles and lash curlers as fashion statements, others go in for quirkier, more enduring transformations. It’s well known that across borders, tattoos and other corporal modifications like body branding have signified status, rites of passage, even virility. Today we actively seek these out and dub them body art. Roald Dahl explored this idea in Skin, one of his fictional stories for adults, in which a destitute man reveals that the tattoo on his back was an early work done by a famous Parisian artist only to have it skinned off.

Tattoos, permanent or otherwise, continue to be a major cultural pre-occupation in literature and movies, witness Asoka and Memento. The most striking aspect of Asoka was undoubtedly Kareena Kapoor’s screen avatar. As Kaurvaki, a princess in exile, she was dressed down and given a nude make-up look but had henna dyes and kohl to add a touch of exotica and glamour. Derived from existent Egyptian influences during the Mauryan dynasty, the movie went for a distinctly period flavour. The deep, dark lines around the eyes sought to imitate the extended eye-liner akin to those of Egyptian queens and this kink soon caught on with beatnik novitiates and punk rockers sashaying their way down the ramp and Mumbai’s bohemian haunts.

But sketching beauty in the modern world involves skirting pageants of the bizarre and the mundane. A man who suffers from short term memory loss tattoos shorthand notes on himself in Memento. This isn’t just the stuff of movies either. My conversation with Al, owner of Al’s Tattoo Parlour in Bandra, teetered around a similar episode. “A mother brought her mentally challenged son to me once who had no sense of his bearings. She asked me to tattoo his name and address on him.

I even had to ink everyday functions like ‘put on your shirt’ across his chest,” he commiserates.
Not all tattoos involve pain in any of these forms though. Consider India’s rich heritage of such forms of art and you realise that the henna prints are the most common. The burnt brown dye used in most weddings is derived from the henna plant whereas the black made famous by Madonna comes from Indigo. And no bridal trousseau could ever be complete without mehndi, a tradition that is indigenous to Southern Asia and Africa. The peacocks, paisleys, dholas and dulhans that are painted on an Indian bride’s hands and feet usually tell a boy-meets-girl-story but those motifs are on their way out. International henna artist Ash Kumar spent 12 days coordinating his designs with those on Vanisha Mittal’s wedding regalia. Stressing the importance of individual designs in the market, he insists, “I match the patterns to the costume or jewellery and incorporate body glitter and Swarovski crystals to make the henna design look more attractive.” The latest vogue involves giving henna a well-defined, golden sheen that resembles Egyptian body painting seen in The Mummy making accessories less viable.