Is having an ink job becoming a new culture?

Himesh Ramji walks into an apartment located on the third floor of the Hindu Benevolent Society Building, opposite Hindu Mandal Hospital in Dar es Salaam, hoping to achieve a longtime goal.

Cutting quite an imposing figure, Himesh has dedicated himself to body building since 2002. All in all, he is happy with his physique but has felt that there is one thing missing- a tattoo.

He enters the bright room, shakes hands with the man sitting next to a reclining leather chair and takes a seat. The two men discuss the design Himesh has picked and soon the sound of their voices is replaced by the low but sharp vibrating sound of the tattoo gun.

The pin slowly makes its way across his upper arm. Himesh starts telling me about his long time desire to get a tattoo. He recalls watching celebrities on the television as a teenager; the ones he admired were always covered with some ink. He decided that as soon as he was able to, he too would get a tattoo of his own.

To him, a tattoo symbolised fearlessness and he always imagined that having one would give him more confidence.

But Himesh faced some opposition from his family who hold the opinion that tattoos are a Western trend that does not necessarily reflect their traditional and religious values.

“My mother crushed the idea instantly, declaring that she wouldn’t tolerate seeing a tattoo on her son’s body,” he recalls.

But Himesh was slowly able to change his mother’s perception by sporting a temporary henna tattoo for a couple of days.

“She was impressed with the henna on my hand, and she asked me if I still nursed the desire of having a tattoo,” he says.

Tattooing in Africa dates back thousands of years, from inked symbols of fertility on women in ancient Egypt to tattoos symbolising tribal hierarchy, a common practice among the Makonde people found in the southern part of Tanzania.

Growing trend

Detailed documentation is hard to come by because of the time period and number of tribes, but tattooing both on the body and the face holds a fixed place in Africa’s history.

It is believed that the use of tribal marks on the continent increased during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. Tribe members being shipped off as slaves to foreign countries were marked to identify them should they ever be rescued or freed - permanent signatures of their heritage.

Tribal and clan wars, beauty, witchcraft and superstitious beliefs were also among the reasons for marking the body.

Unlike the traditional way of tattooing that involved skin piercing with hand held needles, this new art is more sophisticated, as it uses ink, antiseptic, clean utensils and a piercing gun.

Jaykesh Rathod, a tattoo specialist based in the city says that tattooing is arguably becoming a new culture in town, where people use it to communicate something to the world.

“Even the ancient Red Indians had tattoos and so do the Makonde; they do this as a way of relaying something to the public,” he noted.

Jaykesh admits that there is a growing trend in town of people, mainly the youth who want to be tattooed.

“It’s not like in the past when it was common to see seamen and porters with tattoos done differently on their bodies…my first ever customer was a lady who wanted to have a tattoo on her hip,” he reveals.

“I did it when she had covered parts of her body of course, saying she wanted it to be a surprise to her husband,” he says with a smile.

Jaykesh, who is also a masseur and a body and mind therapist, works on three to four customers a day.

Candy Mwanga is one of the many youth that have been obsessed with the new form of art. The 20-year-old’s upper arm sports an image of her mother. She wanted a constant reminder of her and a tattoo was the best way she could honour her.

“My mother is my inspiration, when I look at my tattoo, it is as if she is next to me,” she explains.

The second year university student recalls her first tattoo experience. “It took me close to two hours. In the beginning it hurt a bit, but I got used to it,” says Candy.

When asked if she was ever worried about her health when being tattooed, Candy says she made sure that everything that was used during the process was sterilised and sanitised.

Health precautions

She admits to have been afraid she would run the risk of getting cancer if the ink was to penetrate the inner layer of her skin.

Candy parted with $ 150 (Sh 240,000) to have the image of her mother on her upper arm and describes the experience as something worthwhile. According to her, people want to have tattoos so that they can present themselves in a certain way and as a way of communicating their feelings.

Lilian Adika, who got tattooed by Jaykesh, says it was a nice experience, knowing that somebody is assured of how safe the process goes.

“He applies antiseptic on you before the whole process begins and smears Vaseline to clean it before dressing,” she says.

Lilian, who travelled all the way from Kenya to be tattooed, says she learnt of the service on a social network.

“I got to know him on Facebook and we communicated and here I am now,” she says.

Nevertheless, inscribing ink on one’s skin comes with a hefty price, according to Mr Rajab Mwenda, a public relations officer with the National Blood Transfusion Service, in the city. He says that somebody with a tattoo would never be allowed to donate blood.

“No, we never take their blood because we assume that their blood might not be fit as they are likely to have used equipment which have not been sterilised,” he says.

However, Candy was not aware of that. “This is news to me,” she says.

In addition, people with tattoos on their skins are also not allowed to join military or police forces in the country.

A military personnel who prefers not to be mentioned in the story, says before recruitment, those wishing to join the forces are checked.

“This is mandatory in the force, if you have any inscriptions on your skin, you are not fit to join the military,” he adds.

Sporting a tattoo of a dragon on his right arm, Himesh is now happy to see his mother insisting that he should go for another one on his left arm.

The auditor says he enjoys the experience of being tattooed as it didn’t hurt, nor did he lose a single drop of blood during the session.

“When I become old I would love to show this to my children and I would still allow them to have tattoos,” he notes.

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