While the world was tuning in to watch the memorial service of Michael Jackson at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, tattoo artist Lokesh Verma was hunched over a client’s back in his parlour, painstakingly recreating the King of Pop’s anti-gravity lean made immortal in the video of his 1987 hit Smooth criminal. “One of my regulars came with an image of Jackson and wanted it on her back as a tribute to him. It was quite an experience transferring the image on to skin,” says Verma, 26, owner of Devil’z Tattooz. If you thought MJ was an offbeat choice of body image, don’t be surprised. This summer young body art lovers aren’t settling for the usual butterfly, Om and satanic images. Quirky is the new buzzword, everything else is passé.

Sonal Lewis, 23, got her first tattoo done by Mumbai-based artist Vikas Malani a few days ago, and the image was like nothing Malani had done before. “It is a half woman-half tiger. It looks as if the woman is coming out of the body of tiger. I used to be a dancer and was nicknamed “Cat” in my dance class. The idea was to get something completely unique, something feline and wild but not vicious, something essentially like me. We’ve heard of mermaids, my tattoo is a tigerwoman,” says Lewis.

Mike Cowasji, who’s been running Mike’s Body Art studio for the past six years, is excited about the kind of designs tattoo buffs have suddenly developed a penchant for.

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