SIX-FIGURE TATTOOS

Did you know that a tattoo can cost you one lakh, or even more? PTgoes tattoo-hunting, and comes back with astonishing facts of figures



COSTLY AFFAIR: A big tattoo of your dreams

can make you shell out a bomb



 EVERYBODY wants a tattoo, it seems. A few among such tattoo seekers are willing to spend a bomb to get one. Confused? Head straight to a tattoo parlour in the city, and you are sure to meet someone who is willing to spend a six-figure amount to get a visual inked. Hear Jennifer Menezes, an event management professional, who is going under the needle to etch a Buddha on her back. “The tattoo is still underway. A few more sittings, and I will have my dream tattoo inked on my back. It’s a figure of Buddha sitting on a lotus. The tattoo is going to be with me forever. So I’ve chosen a theme that shows who I am.” But that’s just the aesthetics part of it. Probe her about the economics, and she says, “It’s costing me a whopping 1.50 lakh. And you know what, it’s a gift from a friend.”

There has to be something about a tattoo that’s making people endure this pain and dole out so much money. Celebrity tattoo artist Sameer Patange, who has inked the likes of Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn, has explored the dark mysteries of a tattoo many times. Patange believes that if you want your entire arm or back to reveal your dark fantasies, then you have to shell out money. “One of my clients is addicted to dark themes. The tattoo on his back had a castle with a path leading to a graveyard. To add to the feel was the dry barren tree in the background. It was so intricate that it cost him above a lakh.”

Fascination for dark themes and horror flicks resulted in a tattoo for IT Professional Irfan. “I love tattoos. It gives me an adrenaline rush. I got a face of a devil inked on my back. It’s very detailed and structured. I spent about 1.3 lakhs. Every time I look at it, I know it’s worth every penny spent on it.” Most tattoos that cost over a lakh cover the entire back or arm. Making one takes up a lot of time as well. Tattoo artist Andy explains, “We start with the outlines, proceed to do the detailing and then follow it up by filling in the dark and light colours, in that order. For a client of mine, I made a huge Spartan warrior. It cost him over 1.3 lakh and took more than four months to complete.”

Many sittings and a lot of patience result in that perfectly inked tattoo. And that might even mean working on it for a year, and that too in four to eight-hour sessions every day, with a 15-day gap after each session. Called body suits, tattoo artiste Sabby agrees that these extensive tattoos are all about detailing and, hence, the big moolah. “The bigger the piece, the more detailed the tattoo is. I’ve done a few such tattoos myself that have cost more than a lakh. The entire process takes more than a year. It starts with a free-hand drawing on the paper as per the shape of the body. And for each back it’s different, as the body suit has to fit perfectly.” Tattoo artist Nirmal Bihani, who has recently started working on a full back tattoo, agrees “The current tattoo that I am working on is a dragon. It’s a complex tattoo with elements like water, fire, flowers and fish. The price for the same will easily exceed a lakh.”

Whether it’s religious sentiments or an angel coming out of the genie’s lamp, a big price is what one must pay if a big tattoo is what one’s looking for. And once you get it, flaunt it and leave it to the world to decode the story.