The Tattoo
My mother, true to her word, went and got her tattoo.
It’s a blue and green chinese dragon from the neck down to her shoulder. (No tramp stamp, thank god.). Took over 3 hours to tattoo I’m told. Impressive stuff, I couldn’t stand the drilling after about 5 mins.
When she first told me she was getting a Chinese dragon I told her she might look like a take-away menu.
Also let me just break away here to say: If your mother is getting a tattoo, then it is a sure sign that the trend is has peaked. (Unless you intend to wallpaper yourself like this guy here.) I’d suggest that rule for about just any trend.
So she asks me, what did I think of it?
This is all via G-chat by the by, with my father typing because my mother hasn’t yet come to terms with technology, even though she’s been using her iPod lately and has a new baffling high-tech phone. (Which I can’t use at all – It’s too complicated. By comparison to mine at any rate. Mine has no call button and doesn’t connect to the internet.)
“So what do you think of Mom’s tattoo?”
“Very nice.”
I mean it, even though that sounds like a half-hearted attempt at diplomacy.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘nice’?
She asks suspiciously.
“I mean it doesn’t look like a takeaway menu.”
It’s hard to know how to compliment the tattoo. I was mostly relieved it wasn’t something terrible. Or somewhere terrible.
“That means you think it does look like a takeaway!”
“Aare no! It looks cool, very cool.”
It does, it does. I mean it.
“By the way, have you noticed that it’s an ‘S’ for Sonja?”
“No I didn’t but that’s a nice touch. Although, all dragons are drawn in ‘S’ shapes. What if Mom’s name was Gonja?”
What if her name was Gonja. I don’t think I’d like having a mother with that name for a start.
“She says there’s a method to her madness. The dragon could be the other way too.”
I have no idea that ‘the other way’ means. I let it slide. Sometimes it’s better not to ask.
“The head has to be inwards because that way it gives her power and strength. That’s its significance.”
What maha bakwas (hokum). I love how tattoo artists and branding people tend to spout the same garbage. We’ve had to do a couple of branding exercises at work and man, the nonsense you have to make sound legitimate is amazing.
Then my father had the audacity to tell me my mother has more ‘guts and balls’ than me because her tattoo is bigger.
I know. Like, gasp.
And whatever!
So I told him she was a copy cat. I got mine over 10 years ago. So there.
“Now now don’t be like that…”
I like that he says “Now now” even though he clearly was stirring.
“But yours is so wimpy!”
The cheek!
My mother didn’t speak to me for a week when I got my navel pierced and was dead set against my getting a tattoo. I had to hide it for 5 years. I got it done in a shed in Goa by a man with the most appalling black nails. I have had no desire for another.
“It cost Rs. 350! What do you expect?”
Apparently my Mom’s tattoo cost Rs. 12,000. Holy crap.
Also I can’t believe I’m having to justify the smallness of my tattoo to my father. The world has turned on its head.
She wants to get another one now. On her ankle.
Seriously. The trend is totally over.
Heart breaking, I’m sure.
