There are few better places to observe a key folk art than on the roads out of Karachi, writes MARY FITZGERALD, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
IT IS the portrait of Benazir Bhutto, her loosely veiled head set against what looks like a flaming halo, that Anil likes best. The image of Pakistan’s former prime minister, almost Warholesque in its execution, adorns the back of his truck. “I’m from Sindh and so was Benazir,” says Anil. “I wanted to show how proud I am of my home.”
Every surface of his lorry is painted with scenes of snow- capped mountains – far removed from the flat, dusty plains of Sindh – soaring eagles and garlands of fat, pink roses. In between are lines of Urdu poetry and verses from the Koran.
There are few better places to observe what is increasingly considered an important branch of Pakistani folk art than on the busy roads that lead from Karachi, the country’s biggest city and main port.
Here, lorries such as Anil’s look like moving kaleidoscopes as they roar past in a blur of bright colours and psychedelic designs.
Many feature highly stylised images of animals including lions and tigers; others, romanticised scenes of rural life or talismanic symbols such as eyes. Several trucks are emblazoned with pictures of beautiful women with enigmatic smiles.
Figures from Pakistan’s history are common – apart from Benazir Bhutto, there are representations of military dictators such as Ayub Khan and Zia-ul-Haq.
Imran Khan, the playboy cricket player turned politician, is a favourite, as is AQ Khan, the scientist considered a national hero by many Pakistanis for developing Pakistan’s nuclear bomb.
Many trucks feature religious imagery including the Ka’ba, the cube-shaped structure in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, or Buraq, the celestial horse believed to have transported the prophet Muhammad to heaven.
“All drivers want their trucks to be beautiful,” says Ustad Habib ur Rehman, a septuagenarian truck artist who has been painting for more than 55 years.
“Many want scenes depicting where they come from, but mostly they leave the design to me.”
Decorated vehicles can be found in other countries – think of elaborately painted buses and trucks in India, the Philippines, Indonesia and several corners of South America – but nowhere else is the practice as common or ornate as in Pakistan.
“It is so widespread that it is very unusual to see an undecorated truck in Pakistan,” says Durriya Kazi, head of the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi, who has been researching the country’s distinctive truck art since the mid-1990s. “A whole industry has grown up around it.”
It takes just over a week to paint an average sized truck, says Ustad Habib ur Rehman, who employs eight artists at his truck yard in Rawalpindi, a town close to the capital, Islamabad. A full paint job costs 50,000 rupees (€442) – an enormous sum on a driver’s wage.
Kazi, noting there is no added economic benefit in embellishing a truck, says the motivation to decorate at such expense lies somewhere else.
“There is a superstitious side to it. One driver told me: ‘We put our lives and our livelihoods in the hands of this vehicle – if we don’t care for it, then there is a kind of superstition that we would not receive the same level of success or safety in return’.”
Kazi also points out some of the decoration echoes that of religious shrines popular in Pakistan.
“All the trucks have elements of prayer, from the artwork to prayer cloths so, in a sense, you could call them moving shrines.”
In recent decades, Pakistani truck art has moved beyond the country’s highways as artists and designers incorporate its exuberant motifs, colours and patterns into their work.
In 1994, Kazi initiated a project in which a painted vehicle was used as a mobile art gallery. Another truck is now part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
More recently, the cover of Granta’s volume of new writing on Pakistan was based on the work of a well-known truck artist in Karachi.
Even Ustad Habib ur Rehman, whose business card contains details of his website and Facebook page, has branched out into decorating everything from garden furniture to teapots, trays, vases and umbrella stands in typical truck art style for Pakistanis and expats alike.
“I never imagined it would become so popular,” he smiles.