When the entire nation was celebrating the World Cup victory of the women’s national cricket team loudly, away from all those cheers and victory parades, two of India’s fiercest players chose a quieter way to mark the win. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana walked into Aliens Tattoo studio in Mumbai to etch the moment that would never fade. “It was overwhelming,” recalls Sunny Bhanushali, founder of the studio, that also has a branch in Bengaluru, adding, “The next day after the big win, the two world champions walked into our studio around midnight to do something deeply meaningful to them. It was nothing short of a huge honour.”
Bhanushali, who wasn’t in town at the time, received a call from Kaur hours after the win. “They had very little time, as they had to travel, meet the Prime Minister, attend events, yet they came to us.” It wasn’t Kaur’s maiden visit to the studio. “She came to the studio about a year-and-a-half-ago for her Aham Brahmasmi (I’m The Universe) tattoo, which represented her struggles, the support from her father – her whole journey,” Bhanushali shares. “Back then, she said something that stayed with us – ‘We are the world champions, the world will see soon.’ That moment turned out to be a kind of manifestation,” he recalls.
When the players returned this time, their energy was different. They were full of emotions, proud, excited, a little numb with words. Allan Gois, director and pro tattoo artist at Aliens Tattoo studio, says. “They wanted to mark the victory but also keep it subtle. They threw a lot of ideas – the trophy, date, flag, number 52 (as India won the final match by 52 runs after 52 years. The challenge was to put all that meaning into a small tattoo.”
After hours of brainstorming, the team designed pieces that captured their essence. Kaur’s tattoo featured geometric lines to capture the flow of the tattoo with ‘2025’ and ‘52’ etched as symbols of perseverance and victory. Mandhana’s tattoo, on the other hand, carries the Indian flag. “We had added elements of the trophy, bat and ball, a few stars to show the feeling of victory since they were very clear about wanting something related to the trophy and the dates,” notes Gois.
For Mandhana, it was her first tattoo, he adds. “She kept saying, ‘This is my last one, I’ll only get another when we win the next World Cup and I shall keep adding things to it’ – that’s how personal it was.” Despite the late-night timing, the atmosphere in the studio was electric and intimate. Gois explains, “They came in at 2.30am on Tuesday and left by 5.30am, the champions of the world sitting quietly while the rest of India was still cheering outside was special.” Vishal Maurya, one of the artists who inked them, shares, “When the final designs were complete, they looked at each other’s tattoos, smiled and shared a quiet moment of pride.”
Bhanushali terms the collaboration a ‘victory’. Gois agrees, “For the world, they are champs, but for us, they are individuals who etched their manifested victory, the greatest high of their lives, into something timeless and deeply personal”.