When my mother noticed a pink crocodile, simultaneously soft and menacing, tattooed onto my left arm, she let out a deep, disappointed sigh. “This is the last nail in the coffin. First you wore skirts to events and we let it slide.
Then you wore heels. Now this? What’s next, a septum piercing ?” It’s not that my devout Muslim mother cannot bear the sight of a tattoo simply because she is conservative and religious. The way she looks at it, a tattoo is also a recipe for trouble, calling attention to her queer son in a world where it’s safer for him to minimise himself and go through life undetected.
Only when I assured her that the ink would fade in a few days to once again reveal unblemished skin did her frown fade. If you grew up in India in the ’90s, begging your parents for a couple of bucks to buy Boomer or Fusen bubble gum just so you could cop a temporary tattoo was a rite of passage. We may have been too young to make a case for permanent ink back then, but temporary tattoos of G.
I. Joe, Beyblade and Ben 10 earned us street cred for a couple of days. Now, as we live through constantly evolving forms of self-expression and internet trends—Brat Summer today, Demure Fall tomorrow—there is an uptick in Gen Zers returning to the era of temporary tattoos.
Only this time, they don’t come free with bubble gum wrappers but are created by illustrators and offered at affordable price points ranging from *₹*200 to *₹*300. The wearer can treat them like an acc.