the distance between us
I ran into Durgesh for the first time on a hot afternoon in the dorms of the surf school we were both staying at. Chatting and walking in the night along the shorelines of Kovalam, I learnt that we were both on adventures, seeking a break from the same city.
It’s funny that I got to tattoo Durgesh. He was an unlikely client, given that I spent the first night ragging him. I thought, ‘gosh (read: fuck), I’m such an older sister’ and tried being nicer. I’m not sure I succeeded, but we found a kinship in sharing stories from our lives.
He really wanted a tattoo (his first!) and he wanted it to be my work.
I did not believe him, even if thoroughly encouraging his choice.
Back in Bangalore, he reached out with some rough drafts and we fixed a date. On April 30th, within a month of us meeting, Durgesh was going to trust me and get this first tattoo.
The design was all his. I helped clean it up as his artist, and then executed it with pachai kuthu (handpoke).
As I write this and think back on the experience of tattooing Durgesh, I am reminded of how courageous and spontaneous humans can be when they let their curiosity and trust lead the way. I know this because, as a tattoo artist, I see this decision being made routinely and help in executing its permanence on skin.
How bloody thrilling! No wonder there’s a post-tattoo rush.
I am often asked what drives my practice to co-create designs with clients, be a collaborator in helping ink people’s stories on skin especially since I always tattoo the traditional way.
I think it’s because I do not relate to tattooing only traditional designs for pachai kuthu, even while recognising the history and culture they carry in their lines.
I notice more now how expansive and unique our experiences have become within a generation or a family (my sibling and I are a decade apart; I find it hard to relate) while having grown up within the same walls.
My energy stems from expanding these lines to versions that speak stories to the body that will carry them today- versions that speak to lived experiences.
Co-creating designs with clients helps me see their unique particularities and how they have been shaped by them. A mark for their experiences, and where I meet them as they are, with some imagination. It is attentive engagement that requires story-making, with an ending that welds the present and acts as therapy towards a more playful and courageous future.
The privilege of my craft is meeting daring souls who are seeking in life, carrying their past with a recognition of it being a gift of learning and memory rather than solely to anchor one down.