If an electronic genie were to spring out of your tablet and promise to grant you three wishes, would one of them be to have a tattoo done?  But what was it like, years ago, when life was seemingly much simpler, when it came to inking one’s body?

To find out I went to Valletta where I encountered a kaleidoscope of colours, sounds and sights. My journey was to interview men between the age of 40 and 60 who could shed some light on the reasons why they got tattoos.

I visited one of the most prominent ‘kazini’, and sought access into an exclusive group of men.

Among a sea of oglers, I started chatting with a 42-year-old who began to unravel the captivating story of his tattoo. Holding a cue stick in his right hand as he was playing snooker, Joe* said times were different when he was in his twenties. Only the rough and thuggish sort had tattoos and they formed ‘klikkek’. Having a tattoo had nothing to do with its artistic value or symbolical meaning. It automatically gained one access into a club of sorts of men who had one.

Joe tells me his friend had a tattoo drawn on his thigh which he hid from his parents, especially his mother. Avidly stereotyping his parents’ generation as “ignorant and narrow-minded”, Joe says the Church used to preach that tattoos were evil and having one was considered a sin.

Strada Stretta – the narrow street full of bars and music halls to entertain visiting sailors and troops – was associated with people who had tattoos; it was their hub since it accommodated all sub cultures including the deviant members of society.  Despite having a scorpion tattooed on his inner thigh twenty five years ago, his mother still does not know he has a tattoo up till this day.

During the 70s and 80s, tattoos were considered taboo. They were associated with the “lower” class. It was only when the “upper” classes started to get inked that tattoos started to be accepted into mainstream culture and to be considered as stylish and fashionable.

I moved on to a 67-year-old who boasted about his tattoos as they manifested his Socialist inclinations.

Donning half a sleeve portrait of ‘Che Guevara’ explicitly revealing his Communist preferences, he also did not hold back from showing me a large Cannabis leaf on his right calf. This, apart from the names ‘Dylan’ standing for the legendary folk singer, Bob Dylan and ‘Lennon’ in memory of John Lennon, the most famous of the mythical Liverpudlian ‘Fab Four’.

Labelling himself as an avid political activist he opposes the view that with the passage of time, one is bound to regret having got tattoos. In his younger days tattoos were inexpensive or free because friends who were tattoo artists practiced on each other.

Salvu* has no problem revealing his tattoo at work. His friend Karmnu* says his parents were not happy with his tattoo but had to accept it because it was permanent. An eagle on his right shoulder had no particular meaning but was aesthetically pleasing to him. The mentality was different during their time and men mostly got tattoos with political party symbols or animals that had no specific meaning.

Tattoos have now become popular across the board irrespective of gender or class.  Yet there are people who still do not appreciate what tattoos really represent.

Today, the repulsion of a body being somehow permanently marked is lessening and tattoos are increasingly being considered as intricate and personalized art which symbolizes so much to the people who decide to get them done.

*Names have been changed at the request of the persons interviewed