Full back tattoo of the elephant-headed deity Ganesha in neo-traditional colour, with an ornate crown, jewels and swirling cloud motifs on a man's back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ganesha full back tattoo in colour

Neo-trad · Back · Colour · Photo

A large back piece shows the elephant-headed deity Ganesha centred in a symmetrical composition, with a decorated crown, a forehead mark and jewelled ornaments. Bold outlines and smooth shading give the face and trunk a grey, sculpted look. Warm reds, oranges and yellows dominate the ornaments and crown, with teal and green accents and wispy grey clouds framing the figure across the shoulders and back.

Neo-trad Japanese Back Ganesha Elephant Deity Crown Jewel Cloud Ornament Lotus

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The monsoon had put the river up over the steps of the ghat, and the boatmen of Varanasi had given up on the morning trade. Old Ravi sat under the awning of his stall, mending a broken fishing net with a bone needle, and watched his granddaughter Meena drag a sack of marigolds up from the water's edge. She was nine and stubborn, and she had been promised she could sell the flowers herself if she brought the sack home dry.

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A stranger came down the steps that afternoon, a grey-skinned man with an elephant's head and a crown of hammered gold so heavy his neck bowed under it. He sat on the wet stone beside her and asked for the reddest flower she had. Meena said the reddest flowers were for the temple and not for strangers. The stranger laughed, a sound like a drum struck softly, and said that was a fair answer and he would pay for it with a story.

He told her about a mother who made a boy out of clay and turned his face toward the sun. He told her how the boy kept the door and would not let anyone pass until they had given him something sweet. He told her the river could not carry a thing that was not offered, and that a gift given with both hands was worth more than a sack of gold. Meena listened with her chin on her knees and the rain running off her hair.

When she looked up, the stall was empty and the stone was dry in a ring around the place he had sat. Her grandfather was still mending the net. In the sack at her feet, every marigold was red, and she carried the whole lot up the steps to the temple with both hands.