Three side-by-side views of a black linework tattoo outline on an upper arm, showing Ganesh seated among lotus flowers and peonies with ornate scrollwork.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ganesh and lotus linework on an arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a seated Ganesh holding a bowl of offerings, surrounded by lotus blossoms, peonies and a decorative scroll border. It is shown as single black outline linework with no shading or fill, and the three panels appear to be different angles or stages of the same arm. The skin tone is pale and pinkish, and the composition runs the length of the limb.

Botanical Upper arm Lotus Peony Scrollwork Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The drawing came out of the lining of a rucksack at Harwich at twenty to six on a wet Tuesday, folded in four and gone soft as cloth. I had been on the booth since six that morning and my tea had gone cold twice.

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It was a single line, no colour, the elephant-headed god seated with his knees apart and a bowl held against his belly, lotus heads and peonies pressed round him like a crowd at a gate. The man who owned the bag said his mother had drawn it from memory in a hospital corridor in Leicester, and he was taking it to a cousin in Antwerp who had promised to ink it onto his sleeve. He said it the way people say things they have practised for the scanner.

I asked him what was in the bowl. He said sweets, modaks, for the journey. I said they would have to come out, and he unwrapped a cloth of small pale dumplings, glossy with ghee, and I broke one open with my thumb to be sure. Nothing inside but sweet coconut. I thought of my grandmother's pencil outlines on the backs of envelopes, how she never went over the lines in ink because she said the work was in the first stroke.

I stamped his form and handed back the drawing. He folded it along its old creases and tucked it inside his coat, flat against his chest, the way you would carry something that could still be spoiled by rain. Outside, the lorries were lining up for the ferry, their lights smudged on the glass.