Avantika Inked. Again

My first tattoo hadn’t fully healed when I started planning another one. That was October 2007. After months of not getting the time and then the time not being right, I finally went and got inked again yesterday. And it was as exhilarating an experience as I remembered it.

My first piece was quite small and something I got done on a whim. Luckily for me it turned out nice and I still like looking at it. This new one I’ve been thinking about for quite some time, and have spent hours looking for designs and checking with the few people I know who have some aesthetic sense, and will not hesitate to tell me if I’m about to get a disaster permanently marked on my skin.

(Later Observation: Thats a seriously terrible picture of my foot. I need to practice foot angles now i think!)

My friends of course all think I’m crazy to volunteer for the pain. I think the pain is quite therapeutic. Of course it helps that they (on request) apply some numbing gel (which I think is more of a placebo than anything else). But the fact of the matter is that I quite enjoyed the noise and movement of the needle as it went about inserting ink into my skin. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not denying the pain. Nor am I masochistic. All I’m saying is that the dull (and at times sharp) throbbing pain was quite tolerable. And once you’re through you really don’t think of the pain in all the post-tattoo excitement.

So after an hour’s wait, another hour under the needle (a new one, fresh from a sealed packet) and a quick squirt of dettol-water to wipe away the extra colour and blood, I was the proud owner of a brand new tattoo.

I knew where I wanted my third piece even before I left the studio.

My poor (needle phobic) fellow says we shall discuss it.