Arindam Ganguly, OP
Bhubaneswar: A first of its kind tattoo art festival, ‘Spirithood Tattoo Festival’, con- cluded here Wednesday. Hosted by SKIVAS in association with Konark Harley-Davidson at the Harley Davidson showroom, the festival commenced January 28 showcasing 11 tattoo experts in- cluding international artists Sunny Bhanushali, Amin Sultan, Debanjali Das and Aubhojit Chakrabarthy. Om Acharya, owner of SKI- VAS and a renowned tattoo artist said the festival attracted huge footfalls of tattoo enthusiasts. Acharya hoped the Spirithood Tattoo Festival will help break the taboo about tattoos in the society. It is an attempt to make people aware that tattoo is not just a style statement, it’s a reflec- tion of the soul on the skin. He further said tat- too art is slowly de- veloping and with every year the number of peo- ple getting at- tracted to it is increasing. For him, “tat- too is a religion he follows very vigorously”. “It’s a univer- sal language which can bridge gaps between the peo- ple, countries and generations.
The response to the first tattoo festival has been so encouraging that it has been de- cided to organize the event an- nually. The festival will also make people conscious about the body art. Artists were seen designing small and big sized tattoos on people’s body as per their wish. Amit Sultan Hajiani of Hyderabad who had inked tattoos for celebrities such as badminton star Jwala Gutta and actor Harshvardhan Rane said tattoo art is a delicate art and needs hours of constant practice. “We have to first create a sketch of the tattoo design in advance which we recreate on the body because if the design goes wrong it be- comes difficult to erase easily,” he added. A body art sometimes takes a few hours to be completed. People tend to come with wishes of hav- ing tattoos on faces of gods or their relatives, especially lovers or parents, some also come for thematic designs such as for good luck or like Chinese Feng Shui patterns. In India, there are thousands of body and tattoo artists and this platform helps bring them all together. Besides the tattoo art, the festival has a musical band Dhwani and Deluge performing for the artists and the audience. Debanjali Das, a lady tattoo artist, who participated in the event, said such festivals are quite regular abroad, while in India the art is slowly picking up. There are many tattoo festivals which are being organised in New Delhi and elsewhere. She had vis-
ited Bhubaneswar several times to attend workshops on tattoo and felt happy to see a large number of art lovers coming to the festival.
Aravind Garg, a tattoo lover, said he has got the initials of his name inked. He said it is a difficult art to pursue.
