Red and black dotwork mandala with a central om symbol and a black unalome line running down the thigh, in a close photograph.

Om mandala with unalome on thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A large mandala with a central om symbol sits on the outer thigh, with a vertical unalome line and spirals extending above and below it. The mandala is built from fine red dots and stippled shading, while the spirals, rays and outer line are in solid black. The subject fills most of the frame against a plain indoor background.

Dotwork Geometric Thigh Mandala Om symbol Unalome Spiral Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Rain had been falling on Hallam Market since before dawn, and by eight the flagstones under the Wednesday stalls were slick as fish skin. Ravi Sandhu was already on his knees by the fruit stall, tipping a paper cone of turmeric onto the stone. I asked him what he was doing. He said, without looking up, that the weather would take the morning's work anyway, so he might as well give it something to take.

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Each ring took him a quarter hour. He pressed the powder through a folded square of muslin, the way his grandmother had taught him, so the dots came out fine as breath on glass. The black lines he drew with a burnt matchstick, a wavering path that ran from the centre of the circle up past the lamp post and down to the bins. At each point he curled a small loop like a fern that had not yet decided to open.

I asked why he didn't paint them on a board. He said boards were for people who wanted to keep things, and the pavement was for people passing through. Then the rain thickened and bounced off the awnings, and the ochre began to slide toward the drain in soft red tongues, the outer rings first, then the spirals, until only the centre held its shape under a skin of water.

By nine the rain had taken the centre and most of the loops, but the black line held a little longer, a thin dark thread running down the kerb into the gutter. I stood there with my umbrella dripping on my boots. Then I went to the van for my own muslin and tin of powder, because the thread was still running and it seemed a shame to leave it going on its own.