Girls just wanna get inked

By Sharan Saikumar What could Samantha Cameron, wife of the British Prime Minister David Cameron, possibly have in common with Amy Winehouse, the late rocker chick with alcohol abuse issues? Other than the fact that both women are English, they are also bound by an uncommon love for tattoos. If it comes as a surprise to you that the First Lady of Great Britain sports a tattoo then here’s another one – the redoubtable Helen Mirren carries one bravely on her right hand. It may be sounding like all the respectable ladies in stiff upper lip England are getting tattooed but according to a recent survey it’s not just them — one third of women between 16-44 years are now officially inked. Once the preserve of soldiers, sailors, bikers and criminals and rockstars – tattoos, the ultimate announcement of borderline deviant behavior, have gone feminine for some reason. Last week Oxygen, the TV channel that airs Best Ink in America, released findings stating that 59 percent of women in their research group of 1,000 were inked while the corresponding figure for men was  only 41 percent. Closer home, Swanpil who runs TattooStar in Bandra, Mumbai is also witnessing a bigger wave of women walking into his shop than men. One quick look at Bollywood will confirm the same – the Lara Duttas, Isha Deols, Sushmita Sens, Deepika Padukones far outnumber the macho top guns like Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgan in the tattoo game. Tattoos, it seems, are no longer bad. Some 14 percent of teachers in the UK along with other unlikely professionals like bank clerks, university lecturers and nuclear engineers have one. Unlike what Hindi films will have us believe, it is not only bad boys like SRK in Don 2 or Sanjay Dutt’s evil manifestation in Agneepath who put a stamp on their skins, it’s regular people like you and me, our sisters, best friends and sometimes even mothers who are going out and getting it done. The National Tattoo Association in America has seen a spike in older women getting their first tattoos. Susan Sarandon engraved her grandchildren’s initials on her nape when she turned 61. [caption id=“attachment_261157” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Tattoos, it seems, are no longer bad. AFP”]  [/caption] The perception of tattoos as body art could be partly responsible for this tectonic shift . A group of experimental artists inspired by the human canvas decided to move them from “impulse madness on a drunken night” to “deliberated art”. Suddenly people no longer talked about “getting a tattoo” – a meaningless motif in the middle of nowhere, drifting and directionless. They talked about tattooing: a themed, long-term, coherent piece of artwork on their bodies. Reality shows, discussion forums, art guides were born in support of this new artform and the deviants slowly let go. Once tattoos became bonafide body art, the rest was history.  They began to be invested with meaning. Family names, names of lovers, pets, children, memories, turning points, events, mementos all became material for the skins’ canvas and creativity bloomed. Gone were the stereotypical anchors and crosses, skull and bones, snakes and angels which were common fodder for macho men. As the softer, emotive and artistic version of the tattoos came into being (redolent still with a remnant edginess) a new expression of individuality was born. From here on it doesn’t need a rocket scientist to explain the gender shift.  Young girls with  parents to defy and societies to scorn were just waiting to climb on. And all the yummy mummys who’d been persuading us through clothing, fitness and fashion that that 40 is the new 30, chose this most efficient form of communication, leaving us in no doubt of their 38-going-on-18 status.  An ‘aunty’ could be a lady with a Jimmy Choo but you could hardly say that of a woman with a tattoo! Is this outpouring of individuality going to end with a massive boom in laser removal sector? The American comedian Richard Jeni once said “I always look for a woman who has a tattoo.  I see a woman with a tattoo, and I’m thinking, okay, here’s a gal who’s capable of making a decision she’ll regret in the future.” We’ll just have to wait and see if he was right.