Black dotwork hamsa hand tattoo with an eye, an om symbol and leaf motifs, placed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hamsa hand with eye and om symbol on upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A hamsa hand fills the frame, with an open eye at its centre, an om symbol in the palm and leaf-like vines running along the fingers. The design is built from fine linework and dense stippled dotwork that creates shading across the mandala-style petals and border. It is rendered entirely in black ink and grey tones against pale skin, with the tattoo centred on the upper back.

Dotwork Blackwork Back Hamsa Hand Eye Om symbol Leaves Mandala Petal Vine

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boats came in on the turn of the tide, and my uncle counted them the way other men counted beads. Seven hulls tied off the Kasrel slip, and on every wheelhouse door the same green palm was painted, with an open eye sitting in its centre like a coin in a fist. My aunt Preeti had done the first one the spring after the Stacks took her brother's boat. She ringed the eye with petals, tucked a small om sign into the palm, and told the men it kept off the wrong kind of looking. Nobody argued with a woman holding a paintbrush and a grievance.

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I was seventeen on my first long trip, sorting the catch on a pitching deck with my hands raw from brine. Sami stood at the rail and gave me the only rule he trusted. When the net comes over the gunwale, don't stare at the eye, keep your own eyes on the hauling. I thought it was superstition until the net snagged on a sunken pot, the winch began to whine, and the whole back of the boat tipped toward the grey. I kept my eyes on the rope and my hands did the rest.

When it finally came up it held no fish worth the name, only a torn lobster pot and, in the bottom of the bag, a child's glass float the colour of weak tea. Sami laughed until he had to hold the rail. He rubbed the float on his jumper and pressed it into my palm. 'That eye was never watching the sea for us,' he said. 'It watches who is still on deck when the others have gone quiet.'

We sold the mackerel at dawn, and I went home with the float in my pocket. Each morning since, before I climb down into the hold, I rub the painted eye clean with my sleeve, so it can see me coming back in.