It’s a popular folktale in India. Arbhuta, the hungry tiger, captures Punyakoti, the pious cow, and tries to eat her. She manages to convince him to release her long enough to say goodbye to her calf and return to her fate. He relents. And when Punyakoti does come back, Arbhuta is so moved by this display of devotion, he lets her go.
The story varies slightly depending on who is telling it, and which region they come from. Tattoo artist Simranh Kakkar, 22, who grew up in Delhi, heard it from their parents
In April, they heard it again. This time from Shyam Krishna, 29, who sang it in Kannada, the way his grandmother used to sing to him.
In exchange for the story, Krishna got a 4” x 3” hand-poked tattoo of a crouching tiger from Kakkar above his ankle. In April, Kakkar gave out 24 tiger-themed tattoos in exchange for folktales about the striped cat. Each tattoo also served as a frame for a short animated gif, which Kakkar created as their final-year thesis project for a Bachelor’s degree in Animation at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru.
“Folktales are deeply culturally rooted in India and have a very strong oral significance,” says Kakkar. “They were not written down.” Their work with tattoos made them realise that each design, even one created on a whim, came with its own story. It inspired them to merge their interest in animation and tattoos, in the hope that tiger stories would travel further as tattoos.
Kakkar had been researching the history of tattoos in India for almost a year. A trip to Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh this January gave them the inspiration they were looking for the project. At the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, an anthropological museum, they saw several motifs of tigers, snakes and scorpions. “They appeared again and again in the wall art, sculptures, pots, tapestries, masks. I even found a scorpion shaped lock in one of the displays,” Kakkar says.
“I also read tiger folktales to figure out how tigers are typically represented,” says Kakkar. “I found that they are very feared, fierce characters or playful ones. I wanted to represent that in my designs.” The resulting motif ended up in a Tibetan-art-inspired style, with a mischievous smile, long lashes and extracted claws.
In April, Kakkar posted an open call on their Instagram account (@ratattooille_). Volunteers were invited to come to their studio in Bengaluru and narrate folktales in their mother tongue. In exchange, Kakkar would tattoo a pre-designed tiger tattoo on their arm, leg or back.
Kakkar got 41 entries from across the country. “I got seven entries of the Punyakoti story, which was interesting, since it was a story I had grown up with too,” says Kakkar.
They shortlisted 24 unique tiger-themed folktales, and began to record their narrations in Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu, with a sprinkling of English here and there. And, of course, Kakkar hand-poked 24 tattoos, dot by dot on the volunteers.
Among the entries were tales of ritual. Supraja R, 26, whose family tree branches across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, spoke about a west coast performance tradition called Huli Vesha during Navaratri and other major festivals like Onam. Male dancers impersonate the tiger as a tribute to goddess to Durga. They prowl, crouch and leap, in sleek focused movements. According to Supraja’s narrative, the tigers energies are channelled and embodied by the performers.
Find the audio recordings of the tales on www.ratattooille.com, along with their English transcripts and the animated tattoo gif Kakkar created.
Kakkar plans to expand the project eventually, with more iterations of folktales, more animals, even plants, recipes, and dance forms. What will remain common is the tattoos and the gifs that will accompany their stories.
“A lot of people also had personal anecdotes to tell,” says Kakkar. “I thought that might be interesting to include too.”
For now, 24 storytellers are walking around with Kakkar’s tiger tattoos. If you do spot one, don’t forget to ask them the story behind it.
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