Black and grey tattoo of the elephant-headed deity Ganesha with ornate patterned linework forming an Om symbol on skin.

Ganesha within an Om symbol

Realism · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo shows the elephant-headed deity Ganesha, with his trunk, eyes and ornamented headdress, set within a large Om symbol. Fine linework and stippled shading build the face, hands and holding objects, while the surrounding curls and mandala-like patterns are drawn in clean outline. The design fills the frame on a plain, lightly lit area of skin.

Realism Ganesha Om symbol Elephant Mandala Hand Floral Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been asked to copy the sacred sound for the new gate of Kesarpur, and for three monsoons your reed has failed you at the final curl. The ink thins there and bleeds into the paper like a river finding its old bed. Anand, the scribe who taught you, watches from his stool while his tea goes cold and cloudy beside him. "The curl is where the breath goes out," he says. "Stop holding it."

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So at dusk you walk down to the lower market, where the stonemasons sit cutting elephant heads for the shrines. A boy there called Vikram has a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other, and a thumb wrapped in rag. He is carving a trunk that keeps snapping at the join. You tell him the trunk should curl back toward the heart, the way a question curls, and he laughs and says stone has never cared what anyone thinks. You sit with him anyway until the lamps gutter out, passing him the fine chisel whenever his hand begins to shake, and he passes you the sweet modak from his bag without looking up.

In the morning the gate is hung and the letter goes up over the arch. Nobody sees you draw the last stroke in a single breath, the ink running clean around the loop and closing on itself without a blot. Anand walks the length of the street to read it, squinting, and stands beneath it for a long while. Then he taps the paper twice with one finger, the way he used to when you got a sum right as a child.