My body, my canvas

Art doesn’t stop; it doesn’t apologise. It ebbs and flows until the truth is told. For me it flows through myself, my skin and my body, revealing my truths and helping me hide my lies. Some days when everything in me stops moving, stops breathing and stops living, my body and the pieces it carries are the only thing that keeps me going.

Art doesn’t need an audience. It doesn’t need approval. It merely needs a body to occupy, a space to expand into, and my body becomes my canvas. Art finds that space in me in countless ways. It exists in me as my cuts and scars, my tattoos, my piercings, my rings, my curls, my haircuts and my bracelets. My body is my only safe canvas. It lets me draw what I want without the fear of judgement, without the fear of taking up space and without the fear of being too much. It lets me be true to myself because my body, my choice. The authority it gives, and the freedom that comes with it, becomes my way of saying fuck you to the society around me.

The choices I make become my statement, not always loud ones, but proud ones. It becomes silent answers to all those questions aimed at the root of myself; it becomes declarations against the subtle comments and looks.

My first ever tattoo was a jellyfish. It was my most impulsive yet memorable thing I’ve ever done. Everyone asked me why, but I never uttered the reason out loud. It’s a reminder for me that I’m lovable and I’m worthy. Because the first ever time another human saw my scars, they didn’t draw stars around it, they drew a jellyfish. So, every time I look at the tattoo, it reminds me that I’ve come forward and I have people with me as I move. It reminds me of the love I contain in myself, for the people around me.

My second tattoo, a semicolon, was just so that I needed the pain. I got it to remind myself that nothing is a full stop. It becomes a reminder or rather a warning for myself at times. Sometimes it’s more of a shield than a symbol. A shield to let people think I’m tough, so that maybe they don’t see what’s really underneath.

My third tattoo was waves – it didn’t really have a meaning, but it just reminds me of the free will I have over my life. It reminds me that I am in control of myself and that I can be as free and loud as the waves, if I let myself be.

These three symbols etched on my body are really close to my heart and close to the essence of who I am. Art takes another form in me through my scars. When I feel the need to be louder about my pain, I slash. The cuts on my legs become my relief and anchor. But when you take a deep look at it, you can see the metamorphosis into circles sometimes, waves some other times, and jellyfish yet other times.

Another quieter way my body seeks art is through my rings, earrings and bracelets. I always wear four rings. One of them is a simple 20-rupee ring which I bought for myself for the first time. Another is a black-stoned one someone really close to my heart gifted me. I have a black-beaded bracelet with an evil eye on it, which I never take off, not because I’m scared of evil spirits but because I love my sister. All this is my way of expressing love to the people in my life, for staying and loving me. These objects become my acts of remembrance.

My curls and the way I choose to flaunt them becomes another statement I make. Those curls – untamed, defiant and deeply personal – hold memories, love and even grief. I can never let them go because that would mean letting go of myself.

Art can never be explained. It can only make sense to the person who made it. No one else can interpret it the same way. Just like how cutting my hair, getting a tattoo or slashing myself becomes art to me, my body becomes a canvas to me, this writing becomes another extension of that. Another canvas, another risk.

Art in all its complicated ways becomes my quiet way of claiming space in this loud world.