I walked into a body art session in my department on Friday and this was what I witnessed: the process of making temporary tattoos called the henna.

As opposed to permanent tattoos found now on bodies of very many Americans following the hip-hop trend of today, the designs here made from henna – the dye from a particular flowering plant – lasts for a couple of days, maybe even weeks, before going off by itself after constant washing. One thing for sure is that it looks beautiful, especially when well designed like these ones. And it didn’t take long to make.

The artist was none other than Catherine, the Indian Graduate Assistant, and friend, who works at the Foreign Language computer lab. Wouldn’t you want to get something as beautiful as this? I did get her to write my name on my left arm, but it didn’t turn out as beautiful as these, maybe because I didn’t have a fair skin.