It seems Saif Ali Khan has jumped on David Beckham bandwagon by getting Kareena’s name tattooed on his arm! And the tradition has become a must-have for the ultra modern lovey-dovey couples. A fairly common custom, it has an opposite aspect as well.
Bollywood and Hollywood are packed with copious of celebrities, who have had the names of their partners tattooed on some or the other part of their bodies. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorton got each other’s names needled on their arms; the marriage failed at last! Johnny Depp swallowed the pain to have ‘Winona Forever’ tattooed on his upper arm; he modified it to ‘Wino Forever’ after the split! Pamela Anderson altered ‘Tommy’ with ‘Mommy’ post break-up! And Saif Ali Khan has done the thing of late.
Contrarily, some celebs have it forever! David Beckham braved the needle in his wife Victoria’s name on his arm in the Devnagiri script, and his three sons’ names in different spots on his back. Melanie Griffith still has husband Antonio Banderas’ name. And we need to wait so as to add or never to add Saif Ali Khan’s daring act in this list.
What these stars do is followed by the youth. The fashion they air becomes a style statement. My question here is – Is it the sane step to pronounce their courtship like this – so loud and clear? If you know he/she is the one, then it does make sense. What if it’s the other way around?
Does one really need to do something this silly to prove that the love is in the air? What after that romantic air blows away? You are left with nothing but to repent over that unripe decision that was, in most of the cases, taken in the spur of the moment.
We bagged some experts’ advice on this. Pradeep Menon, a tattoo artist, divulges, “No less than two customers a month come to me with a demand of tattooing their lover’s names on their bodies. But alas! Roughly 80 per cent of them return shortly asking to remove it.”
So we can see the light why it is that most of the tattoo artists discourage customers from getting name tattoos. “I propose they get it in a foreign language, albeit someone insists on getting their lover’s name tattooed. That way, its meaning is known only to that person,” adds Menon.
Another tattooist, Sameer Patange asserts, “If you want a simple permanent tattoo, it costs between Rs 2,500 to Rs 8,000 that can go even higher! And it costs ten times more to get a tattoo off, be it through laser or plastic surgery. Plus, there’s no guarantee of getting the original skin tone back.”
Hairstylist, Kevin Billings, who had tattooed his wife’s name on his arm even before they got married, asks, “If you believe in the relationship, then why not do such a thing? My wife also needled my initials some time later. Though a few people think it to be dim-witted, it barely matters to us!”
