Symbols of style

It hurts like hell, looks like a scar from a distance and your girlfriend's mother will never approve of it, yet tattoos are the hottest rage on campus.

It hurts like hell, looks like a scar from a distance and your girlfriend's mother will never approve of it, yet tattoos are the hottest rage on campus. Why? Many feel it's one of the boldest fashion statements one can make. Anant, a DU student, who recently got one done feels it's done won- ders for his social life.

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"My cool quotient has gone up and it's done wonders for my self confidence." For others, it's a way of setting themselves apart from the crowd, a sure shot attention grabber. It's also common for people to get tattoos that express a belief or support a cause. One can find everything from people sporting the symbols of peace, to the classic om, to the red ribbon of AIDS. There are those who con- sider s tattoo representative of their personality Butterflies for the free-spirited, skulls and scorpions for the aggressive and more elaborate designs for those who dare to go a step further.

Ishani (24) got a ying-yang tattoo around her ankle. She says, "The sign, in a way, summarises the good and the bad in me." And of course, there are those like Saif Ali Khan who sport the name of their better half, literally up their sleeve. Imagine being dumped a week after! Riyas, a DU aspirant, got his girlfriend's name tattooed on his back. Fortunately he was smart enough to get it done in Chinese. Lokesh, owner and tattoo artist at Devil'z Tattooz (one of the most popular tattoo parlours among the youngsters) talks about the whopping rise in people getting inked. He says, "There has been a 200 per cent increase rise in the number of people getting tattoos in the last two years."