Black flash-style design of a lotus flower with curled scrolls and the word namaste in lettering beneath it, shown on a white background with no body placement.

Lotus with namaste lettering design

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A solid black lotus flower with pointed petals rises above two curling scrolls and three dots, with the word namaste set in a curved, decorative lettering below. The shapes are bold and flat with no shading, and the design is shown in black on a plain white background. The composition is centred and symmetrical, with the lettering following the arc of the lotus.

Botanical Lettering Lotus Script Scroll Dot Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The hall smells of floor polish and the paraffin heater that Mrs Adair will not let anyone switch off, and you are late again, so you slip in by the side door with your shoes in your hand. The band has stopped between numbers. Ravi is already on the low stage, his palms pressed together beneath his chin, and he bows to the room the way he always does before the first waltz. Nobody laughs at it any more. You stopped laughing the week you first came.

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He teaches the beginners that the word means something close to the light in me sees the light in you, and that a good partner's frame should hold that greeting without a squeeze. The petals open one at a time, he says, the outer ones first and the centre last, once the water has gone still. Your hand finds the small of your partner's back, and the two curls at the base of the flower, which he insists are the foot of a wave, turn you gently out and back in again. Three dots sit between them like a count, and you learn to breathe on the second.

The letter from the council arrived on Tuesday with a crest and a line about the roof. Tonight is the last dance in the hall before the men with clipboards come on Monday. Ravi has chalked the whole flower onto the boards, petal by petal, and the dancers keep stepping around its edges instead of across its middle, as if the centre might still be wet. You say nothing. You wait until the band starts the slow foxtrot, then you walk out to the middle of the chalk and stand still.

Ravi leaves the piano, crosses the drawing without treading on a single petal, and presses his palms together in front of you. You press yours back, and the last waltz begins.