Mohammed Tirana, 27, a tattoo artist who has been tattooing people for eight years, recently opened his own tattoo parlour, Tirana Tattoos.

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However, there’s a catch. Tirana, who takes on a craft that requires high levels of precision in handiwork, is blind in his right eye. But that hasn’t stopped him from walking down his own path in life.

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Born with Coats’ Disease, a rare condition that, according to an article by Healthline on Sept 18, 2018, causes the abnormal development of red blood vessels in the retina, Tirana has been unable to see out of his right eye since birth.

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“It’s congenital, basically since birth, a bit like lucky, not lucky,” said Tirana.

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Now the owner of a popular tattoo parlour and engaged to his partner, Ms Siti Nurazizah, 23, many people would say that Tirana has succeeded in life. However, they haven’t seen the struggles that he’s faced to get where he is now.

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Having been born with his condition, Tirana has been facing the difficulties that came with his blindness for his entire life. As a child, he was called all sorts of names by his peers due to the way his right eye looked.

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As he grew up, Tirana said that people weren’t interested in mixing with him because he looked “freakish.” Eventually, he realised that even his own family treated him differently, not allowing him to participate in certain activities, such as playing football. Although he knew that they did it out of love, it still stung. But instead of being hurt by their words and actions, he gathered the strength to stand up, push past the hurt and move forward.

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But the challenges that he faced didn’t stop there. Time after time, Tirana was knocked down by his condition. Although now a tattoo artist, his original goal was to enter medical school and become a doctor. However, due to his condition, he was unable to pass the exam to get in.

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“To be honest, it kind of sucked cause I was really into it,” Tirana says. He had even taken a biomedical course during his polytechnic years but understood that becoming a doctor wasn’t the path for him.

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Although discouraged, he bounced back with the help of his friends and family and decided to get a job as a tattoo artist. But as fate would have it, another problem arose.

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According to ReligionCheck, it is forbidden for Muslims to get permanent tattoos and give tattoos to people.

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“I come from a Malay Muslim family background so it’s horrible to even try this,” Tirana said.

 

Deprived of his family’s support, he looked to his idols, REBEL8 artist Mike Giant and ex-tattoo parlour owner Louis Tham as he tried to forge a name for himself in the tattoo industry. Drawing support from them, he managed to push through and set up his own tattoo parlour.

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Despite his visual impairment, he managed to get clients for his parlour, serving them with precision and providing them with quality tattoos, which helped him gain their trust.

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