Second Tattoo

I got my first tattoo done about two years ago and talked about my experience here. It got me thinking on inking again. The same rules of What, Where, Who and When applied here too.

The 'WHO' was the easy part as I was sure I would want to get it done again at Dark Arts Studio in Bangalore where I got my first tattoo done and preferably from Satish Palan who did my first tattoo as well.

The 'WHERE' part was also almost pre-decided. If you read my first tattoo blog you will realise that I was thinking of getting the tattoo done either on my upper or lower part of the hand. Since the first one had been on the upper part of the hand, I decided that the second one would be on the forearm.

The 'WHAT' part got me thinking since I wanted the second one to mean something very personal. The first tattoo had been of Lord Ganesha as I had always wanted to start that way. The second tattoo's idea had already started germinating in my mind for some time. I wanted my family's names as a tattoo and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed awesome since the names were interlinked. My wife's name is Anindita or Ani for short, my daughter's name is Ipsita and my son's name is Tarush. If you look closely, as I did when I started thinking of a design, you can link them with Ani leading into Ipsita leading into Tarush or in other words AnIpsiTArush. So that was fixed. I wanted this to be an inner circle with the outer circle saying Beautiful Soul as these three were the beautiful soul of my life. Two concentric circles - AnIpsiTArush as inner and Beautiful Soul as outer.

The most difficult part was the 'WHEN' part as I just could not find the time in my busy schedule. In between travelling and family time, I was not able to take the required time out to visit Dark Arts. In the meantime, I had been speaking to my best friend, Sowmya Ramachandran, and getting her psyched to get a tattoo done as well. We had been discussing for quite some time about the possibility. 30th Nov was her birthday and we got discussing about the possibility of her getting her tattoo done on that day. I had a tentative appointment for her at Dark Arts and when she finally decided to get it done, I decided to accompany her and get my second one done as well. So the first tattoo was on Ganesh Chaturthi and the second one on my best friend's birthday.

When we landed up at Dark Arts, we got to Sowmya's design first. She wanted to get a Sun done and as she was being shown some designs, I got a chance to explain my 'concentric circle' design to Preeti. Sowmya quickly decided on a flaming Sun with a V (for Vedanth, her son) morphing into a R (for Raj, her husband) in the centre of the Sun. As I got discussing with them on my idea, we quickly realised that having so many alphabets in a circle may make it illegible. As Preeti showed me some fonts, we finalised on a beautiful cursive font which would give it some flair. The stencil looked good and we were set.

Sowmya's tattoo took a good hour to get done and it did pain a bit for her as she was getting it done right at the pulse area on her wrist. The end result is really good. Satish got started on mine after her's was done. And it took all of 2-1/2 hours to get it done. As I had mentioned earlier, this time too it wasn't very bad. There were moments when it did pain a bit but mostly it was like a small needle pricking you softly. After some time you sort of get used to it and it doesn't even register. At the end of 2-1/2 hours by 10.00pm, my tattoo was done and I had my second ink.

The tattoo is big, taking up almost 3/4 of the arm. I jokingly mention to people that now I can't even have an affair as the girl will ask whose names are those on your hand and when I tell her that its my wife and kids, I'm sure she'll disappear. :) But what better way to show commitment and love for my family than to have them tatto-ed on my body with the fact that they are the Beautiful Soul of my life!

Day 39 - बुरी नज़र

One of the first things that you come across when you become a parent (in India at least) is your mother or grandmother putting a small black mark on the baby or making the baby wear a black thread. The idea behind this is to ward off the evil eyes or बुरी नज़र of people. The concept is that when people see your child and say things like 'So cute', 'so beautiful' etc they are also subconsciously or un-intentionally casting their bad thoughts along with that. They are comparing the cuteness of your child with others and unknowingly passing judgement and sending those negative energy to the child. When the negative energy builds up, it makes the child cranky, angry and un-managebale. The child seems to cry for no reason and starts behaving irrationally like not eating. The black thread or the black mark is supposed to ward off these evil eyes and form a shield over the child.

Now, I pride myself on the fact that I am a very scientific guy. I am sure that for most of the things in this word there is a scientific explanation - barring things like ghosts for which I have a simple funda. I believe in ghosts because I don't want to come up against one. So while agreeing to tie the thread or put the black mark, I was also skeptical about this whole grandmother's tale and mumbo-jumbo.

Till I experienced it myself first hand for which I had no scientific explanation to give.

Sometimes the black mark or the thread is not enough and the negative energy build up over the child. When that happens and the child becomes cranky and crying you can also remove the negative energy and discard it by doing a ritual called नज़र ऊतारना (nazar utarna).

Try this at home. Take a handful of dried red chillies, add a dash of mustard seeds to them and some salt. Put this on a gas burner and light it up. Make sure that you have the exhaust fan on at full blast or you have something covering you nose and eyes as the smoke can cause intense coughing. But if this same combination is passed over a child who has the negative energy and then burnt, you can stand there and breathe in the fumes and nothing will happen to you. I though this was complete mumbo-jumbo.

When Ipsi was 9 months old we went with some friends to Ooty. We went to someone's house one day. Ipsi was absolutely fine in the day but in the night when we tried to feed her, she just kept crying. Finally Ani took the red chili + mustard + salt, passed it over Ipsi's body five times and went to the gas. At the same time the old lady of the house took red chilies and salt, passed it over Ipsi's body and threw it outside. As Ani was getting ready to burn the chili we were all ready to cover our noses. Wonder of wonders - not a whiff of the obnoxious smell came from the gas. When the thing was completely burnt, Ipsi stopped crying and ate her food. That was my first experience of नज़र ऊतारना and I became a believer.

Since then I am an advocate of this ritual and keep telling my fiends to do nazar utarna for their kids if they are looking cute in a new dress or if they have just performed somewhere and everyone has sung their praises or just if the kid is cranky. It works just like it did last night too with Tarush. He had been crying for almost one hour before we did this. No smell and just a few minutes later he was asleep.

What is it? What is the explanation for no fumes? How does it work?

I have no scientific explanation for this but it works! Try it!

Day 21 - Will I love my second child as much as my first child?

Its a question that many parents think about subconsciously when they are expecting their second child. More true if there has been a fair gap (3-5 years or more) between the first child and the coming of the second child.

With your first child you have devoted your time, attention, love and affections completely on him/her. You have grown with the child and experienced the world for the first time through its eyes. You have learned new words and new ways of saying the same words with the first born. You have fallen in love all over again and the child is the center of your being. Even your spouse comes a far third to the child.

Now you are expecting a second child and while there is a happiness in the fact that your first born will have a sibling, there is also a constant question if you will love your second child as much as you did your first. You think that you have already experienced all the joys of parenthood in terms of showering affection, seeing new things and hearing new sounds through the first child. Will I be able to re-experience the same things again and have the same exhilaration when the second one does all this again?

I had that question! Ipsi was 4 when Ani was expecting again and while I was happy, I had this constant fear in my mind. I loved Ipsi to the core. Like all parents, I though she was the cutest, most beautiful and most smart child I had ever seen. I was worried if I would have the same strong feelings for my second child. I did not want to be a parent who distinguishes between the love for their two children. I did not want to be the one who loves the first born more than the second and tries hard to hide those feelings. And I was afraid.

To all those who go through the same feelings.........Relax!

The miracle of birth takes care of all that. The moment I laid eyes on my son, I knew that the cycle had started again. As the child grows older you experience the same feelings that you did the first time. In fact they are different than the first time. As everyone says (and we rarely believe it) each child is different from the next one. And that comes out so evidently when you have two children. The second child does things dramatically different from the first one and you experience the same fun, happiness, pride, joy and love for the second child.

My son does things that my daughter never did and vice-versa. Tarush climbs on audio speakers, tables, plays with cars, breaks things, wants to play with switches and so many things that Ipsi never did. Ipsi was silent, loved to play with her dolls and her fantasies, loved fairy tales and long hair. She still does actually.

The fun is that the two children bond with each other so well and that sight brings joy to your heart. More details in my other blog on Day 16

Today I can proudly say that my fear was unfounded and I love both my children very much. In fact because I am re-living the discovery phase with my son again, my first born might complain at times that I love my second born more than her!!!

Different Problem........different blog! :)