Niranjana, Melissa and Andy Perdue

Few things in life are permanent. Family and tattoos are pretty close, though.

Several years ago, I got my first tattoo. It is on my upper left arm and is Melissa's name written in Arabic.

Several months before we left for India, I talked to Melissa about getting Niranjana's name tattooed on my upper right arm. As before, she approved the idea. While in India, we asked Kamala (a social worker at the orphanage) to write Niranjana's name out in Tamil, her native language. It was just as long in Tamil as it was in English. That paper sat around for several months after we got home. I talked many times about getting that tattoo done but never seemed to get around to it.

Several days ago, I was getting Niranjana dressed for school. I wasn't wearing my shirt, and she pointed to my tattoo. She knows it is Mommy's name. She then pointed to my blank right arm and asked, "Where is my name, Daddy?"

Did I need another excuse?

So last week, I had the scanner out for another project, and Melissa suggested I scan in that paper before it got lost in the shuffle. I did, then decided to email it to a local tattoo place, the same one I'd had my first tattoo done. I got an email back from the owner saying the design would not be a problem, so I stopped by the next day and made an appointment.

Yesterday was the day. I arranged to have Bethany, a young woman who works for me, along to videotape the process. Another young woman from work also came along, so we brought a second camera (in my profession, everything is potential online content). We walked up from the paper and went in to meet Sam, the tattoo artist. Sam is well-tattooed. I asked him how many he has. He said he lost count and figures it'll all be one big tattoo one of these days.

I gave him an idea of what I wanted, and he went into the back for about 20 minutes to work on the design. He came out with exactly what I wanted, applied a stencil and got to work. I decided to fill in the design with green, one of the colors of the Indian flag. Some 40 minutes later, Niranjana was indelibly imprinted on my arm. I won't lie: Getting a tattoo hurts, though not much worse than getting a solid teeth cleaning.

With the tattoo covered in a bandage, I went back to work. I went home three hours later and took off the bandage for mother and daughter. Niranjana was very excited, touching my still-tender skin and saying, "Niranjana!"

Here's the video Bethany put together, which she also used for her blog at bethzilla.com.