It’s how designs have found a new life in the West as well. But to keep the motifs alive, she also paints on canvas. Mangla Bai says she enjoys tattooing young people at events in Mumbai. Such motifs, along with kolams from southern India, evil-eye patterns and other designs, form a rich virtual archive for young people looking to get traditional tattoos. These include styles such as the dotted trajva markings worn by the Rabari tribes of Gujarat and Rajasthan, which once substituted for jewellery. On Instagram, run by Mumbai-based tattoo artist Shomil Shah, has been documenting traditional tattoo designs from across the country. “But people in cities are getting interested in our indigenous motifs and techniques.” “India’s ministry of culture does not recognise tattoos as an art form,” says Rao. The artists, along with practitioners Hanshi Bai, Lakhami and Kevala Nag from Chhattisgarh, will also be in conversation with Mushtak Khan, former deputy director of Delhi’s Crafts Museum. Mangla Bai, 34, will demonstrate how using many needles at once helps create the thick designs inked by the Baiga and Gond tribes of Madhya Pradesh. Moranngam Khaling, 37, who has been researching the inking culture of his Naga people and of other tribes in Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, will speak on what local motifs from these states represent. But people in cities are getting interested in our indigenous motifs and techniques,” says Chennai-based researcher and arts practitioner M Sahana Rao, who organises the Godna Project. “India’s ministry of culture does not recognise tattoos as an art form. Rao hopes meeting others like herself might trigger her memory. She doesn’t recall much of the process of making some of the indigenous inks. S Janaki, from the Kurumba tribe of shepherds and weavers in Ooty, Tamil Nadu, is 50, and is among the last in her community to administer tattoos. It’s more about remembering than reviving, she adds. “I want to bring as many practitioners as I can to one place, so they can share knowledge with each other and with the rest of us.” “So many communities have simply forgotten how they created and viewed tattooing,” Rao says. But knowledge of local hand-poke styles, symbolism, even needle-making and the making of indigenous inks is fast disappearing from memory. The irony presents itself right away: tattoos are indelible. Instead, Chennai-based researcher and arts practitioner M Sahana Rao, 28, is bringing together indigenous tattoo artists from across India, in an effort to document and discuss India’s inking traditions.
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