The road is ours!
Pakistan's economy is greatly dependent on truck transport, just as in other South Asian countries. And like in other parts of the region, the trucks in Pakistan too are loaded over the limit as they lumber across the plains or strain over the hills. But there is one big difference: the old Bedfords of Pakistan are part of another economy too, the profits of which are not paid out in rupees but in honour and aesthetics. This is the arena of images, symbols and dreams, expressed in the currency of popular art.
Pakistani trucks are veritable works of art covered as they are completely with paintings, ornaments, reflectors, hammered metal fittings, woodcarvings, and other decorations. On exhibit are portraits of national heroes, beautiful women, imaginary landscapes with wood covered hills and quiet lakes, as well as images that profess a profound regard for Islam. By Islamic standards, it might seem contradictory to show unveiled (or only semi-veiled) females unabashedly, but these images are only as contradictory and multilayered as is the real life of most ordinary people.
There is an explicit order and hierarchy of values expressed in truck paintings, amounting almost to a syntax of truck art. The highest part of a truck is invariably reserved for Islam. Calligraphies reading Aya Allah and Aya Mohammad, along with pictures of the Kaaba at Mecca, are found on what is called ataj, the crown, a wooden construction that looms above the driver's cabin. The sides of the cabin are often covered with a kind of mosaic of metal reliefs intersected with small painted ornaments, and sometimes the doors are made of finely carved wood. However, the most important exhibition areas for truck paintings are the sides of the load area. The wooden panels of the sides are divided into small segments by iron struts to frame a number of different pictures. The most common features are landscapes, women's faces, birds, tigers and flowers, but sometimes technological motifs like airports and trains can also be found.