It is difficult to understand why people would choose to have ink injected under their skin as this means taking themselves a mark that will last longer they remains on this earth. There can be multiple constructions and of them, very common preconception focuses on abnormal characteristics associated with tattooed people, even, historically in many places of the world, "tattoos" were regarded as sign of social marginalization for the lower socio-economic groups as well as for marking criminals. But with the large prevalence that has taken place over the last 20-30 years, it has become main-stream, particularly among young people to present and express their self. Over time it has crossed continents, cut across the class and gender lines, flowed between high and low cultural milieus. Though there are many scholarly articles on tattoo have been found concentrating on American and European context but there is a paucity of documentation from India. Present exploratory research is an attempt to understand motivational dimensions from the lived experiences of the tattooed people in the metropolitan city Kolkata. A qualitative approach was adopted using in-depth interviews. Overall evidences suggested that there are many perceptions prompted people to have "tattoo" ranges from art, individuality, spirituality, memories to affection, fashion, scar hiding, idealizing someone and sometimes even influenced from social media.

Lip print pattern (LPP) is unique to each individual. For decades, forensic experts have used LPP for personal identification to solve criminal cases. However, studies investigating ethnic variation in LPP are scanty. Our study wanted to investigate variation in LPP between two ethnic groups, Oraon tribals and Bengalee Hindus, residing in West Bengal, India. A total of 280 participants included 112 Oraons and168 Bengalee Hindus of both. Prints were taken using dark shaded lipstick and transparent cellophane tape and recorded into white A4 sheet. Prints were divided into four quadrants and examined by magnifying glass. For analysis of results, classification of Suzuki and Tsuchihashi was followed. A p value of 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. It was observed that Type II pattern was dominant in first and second quadrants in both ethnic groups, irrespective of sex. Combination of Type II+III was found to be the most common pattern in males among both Oraons (16.2%) and Bengalee Hindus (12.2%) whereas in females Type II pattern (25.0%) among Oraons and Type III pattern among Bengalee Hindus (11.4%) was the most common. Chi square test showed statistically significant difference among females (p<0.05) and in third and fourth quadrants among males (p<0.01) of both ethnic groups. Our investigation clearly demonstrated sex and ethnic variations in LPP. Further studies are required to investigate ethnic variation in LPP among the various populations groups, both tribal as well as non-tribal, from different regions of India.

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