गोंदण
gondan · hand-poked marks · Warli, Gond, Korku
I · The marks
गोंदण is the tattooing carried by women across the Warli, Gond and Korku country — pricked in by hand with a needle and lamp soot, often in girlhood, often by an aunt or a travelling gondhali woman.
The marks are geometry: dots, chevrons, combs, the sun, a row of trees along a forearm, a small crescent between the brows.
II · Inheritance
The recipe came down the same way the markings did — by hand, without paper.
Nobody wrote out an ubtan. It was measured in pinches, adjusted for the weather, and taught while it was being made — more multani mati in the wet months, more chandan when the heat came.
The women who wear these marks are the same women who ground the sandalwood, dried the rose, and knew which turmeric was the one you put on your face and which you put in the pot. We asked, we listened, and we changed as little as we could.
Skin keeps a record. We only ever meant to look after the page.