Inked!

These days many youngsters seem to be smitten by the art of tattooing. Inspired by celebrities - actors, cricketers and musicians, the present generation considers sporting a tattoo ‘cool, trendy and chic’.While Angelina Jolie has some of her body parts inked, so have Deepika Padukone, Esha Deol, Saif Ali Khan, Amrita Arora and Virat Kohli. While many are getting some names inked, others are going in for signs like Gayatri mantra, OM or the conventional dragon or butterflies.In style “I always wanted to have a tattoo done. I had seen a design in TV and wanted the same design along with piercing. I got both of it done in Bhubaneswar from a friend Barid Nayak, who is also a tattoo and piercing artist, now settled in Hyderabad,” says Ananya Patnaik, a student and model.Another youngster Prabhav Kumar says “I have a rock band and after seeing Sreesanth’s S36 tattoo on his neck which is symbolic of his music band, I planned to get a similar one done on my neck.” While earlier, people had to travel to places like Goa, Mumbai and Delhi to get tattoos done, now, these things can be done in the city. Despite being exorbitantly priced, people dont mind shelling out a large sum to accessorise their body with tattoo art.Money matters Tony, a tattoo artist from Ghaziabad who runs the Tattoo of Nirvana salon in Bhubaneswar, says an IT professional had got a theme-based tattoo on his back done that cost `25,000 six months back. “The basic price for a four square inch tattoo begins at `590 and can go up as per the design and colour,” says Tony, adding that the recent one he did was a ‘Trishul’ on the hand of a college-goer and that was priced at `18,000.He says even girls are coming forward to get tattoos done and the designs they prefer are mostly small flowers, angels, stars and butterflies. Tony claims he has inked as many as 300 people in the last six months.Traditional vs trendy Kolkata-based tattoo artist Duke who works at the Jack & Jill Salon here says: “Till last year youths used to go for traditional or trendy designs or abstract art.But this year, the craze has heavily oscillated to expressionist tattoos. A 23-yearboy got himself inked with his family tree to celebrate a family reunion after 43 years of dispute.” Duke, who has been working here for the past four years, says tattooing is certainly catching up.“While some get inked to up their cool quotient, others have a divine connect with their tattoos. For instance, some get the ‘Gayatri Mantra’ tattooed, others get the ‘Om’ sign,” he said.