Earlier tonight, I told my parents that I’ve finally decided on what tattoo I want to get that and I intend on getting it done next week. For those that don’t know I’m indian and if ya’ll have indian friends then you’ll know how strict indian parents are. Most are very traditional and reserved like mine, rather annoying to be honest. I’m not the typical indian kid, I’m studying something creative and I plan on working in the creative industry. My parents understand that but yet want me to act ‘normal‘. Continues after the cut.
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I wasn’t always this way in fact I was the geeky kid in High School, I’ll actually embarrass myself and feature a photo of what I looked like back then. I’m not giving you a clear photo, god no, that would be too much exposure on the internet. I’ve had to edit this post halfway through typing as someone from my past commented this on my Facebook status:
‘If I’d been asked when you were all at Langdon who was most likely in 11L2 to get a tattoo you would have been low on my list! Funny eh’. – Ms. Williams (My High School form tutor)
Thank you Miss for making my day and it’s only 00:38 am, it sums up how different I was back then. Ya’ll can diss! but I know I don’t look that way now. My parents were overprotective and for that very reason I rebelled. Deep down I was always creative, drawing was my passion as a child and from there one thing lead to another which resulted in me majoring in Creative Advertising. I’m quite fashion-forward, I try to use my style as a way of expressing myself. My parents hated on my style for a while before they started to realise that I didn’t dress like any of the ‘ghetto’ heads you’ll see around this part of East London. Which is obviously a plus point as most parents want their children not to look like a street kid.
Back to tonight’s argument, It started off with me telling them that I’m getting a tattoo next week. It’s taken days, months, years to decide what I want done A few on my Facebook have hated it but those people have the most generic tattoos ever, e.g. their own names in the typical calligraphy font, stars, or swirly stuff. I really don’t understand why you would get initials from your name or your full name tattooed on their bodies? do you really need help spelling your name? stars don’t get even me started on them, even my future wife Rihanna has them. The design for my tattoo is above. Spend 5 minutes trying to decipher it, my mum picked it up in straight away so I’m guessing she’s probably the parent who I inherited my creative genes from.
Did you guess it right? my reasoning for it: without love, life would be pretty damn shitty. Love for God, love for family, love for oneself and last but not least love for Rihanna. Ok maybe not the last one but you get the drift, just replace Rihanna with that special someone. My idea of a tattoo is to always have a meaning for them, there’s no point in getting something permanently drawn onto your body if it doesn’t mean anything to you. Like I have a friend who got a dove tattooed on her wrist recently and I asked her what it meant to her, she say it symbolizes peace after a few seconds of thought. Clearly she got it because it’s ‘pretty‘.
Swiftly moving on from my tattoo design, the title of this post was about the word ‘Normal’. What exactly is it? Here’s the Oxford English dictionary definition:
• conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.
That’s exactly what I’m not, I don’t like being typical/normal/average. My dad’s initial reaction was ‘Listen to me, you need to act more normal’ so I asked him what is normal and to define it but he couldn’t. He then proceeded to tell me to go to Bank/Liverpool Street station (hence the photo at the top) and watch the people as they walk by and how they are dressed. My reply was: ‘I’m a creative, I don’t intend on getting a job that requires me to wear a suit to the office’. I’m not one to try hard to be different as being different is basically being yourself, being individual. Sadly society are scared of the individual.
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