Make Road Trips Fun With The Art And Witty Words On India’s Trucks

Long road trips on our national highways can be fun if we look at the various trucks with the vivid truck art on them, and the fun slogans!

Long road trips on our national highways can be fun if we look at the various trucks with the vivid truck art on them, and the fun slogans!

Road trips can be very boring at times, especially when we have to sit for hours in a vehicle and the traffic moves at a snail’s pace. As we move up North, from Chandigarh to Himachal, admiring the beauty of hills and the Trucks is a real good pastime.

Yes , you heard it right! Yes, the Trucks!. The traffic congestion along the highways with huge trucks and blaring horns can be irritating , but if we observe carefully, the trucks around can be a major source of amusement.

Each driver decorates his truck with his own tastes. The truck becomes the reflection of the personality of its master behind the wheel. The trucks decorated with garlands, evil-eye masks, stickers and glittery stuff is a vibrant sight.
To ward off evil, talismans are tied to the bumper. Even sandals, chilly-lemons and scarfs can be found hanging at times.

The most common painting in the trucks moving up north is of traditional women carrying water vases. The trucks more or less become a movable work of art. I would rather term it as ‘art on the move’ with its unique, colourful and vibrant mix.

Indian trucks are also a great source of wisdom with their witty one-liners. All this makes our journey so enjoyable.

The speed limit is often written in large. Then there are instructions like: use Diaper at night, (I had to decode it as ‘use dipper at night’!), Wait for side, Horn OK please (What does this really mean?)! ‘All India permit’ are also the common words found on the rear of the trucks.

But the hilarious ones are those in Hindi – transliterated here:

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  • BURI NAZAR WALE TERA MOOH KALA
  • MAA KA AASHIRWAD
  • SINGH IS KING
  • YEH DIL MAANGE MORE
  • CHAMIYA
  • LAADLI
  • LAADLA
  • BETI OR SHERNI

are few of the common proverbs and the funny ones.

image

Image credit: Anjali Sharma

Trucks are diesel guzzlers so sometimes we may find the quote such as ‘Iraq ka pani, kitna rani’ when petrol and diesel was imported from there. Quotations near the tail light are often wacky and at times heart-touching.

The fatta box, I mean the tool box is also the major source of amusement on the Indian trucks, as we see the trucks moving towards Himachal with a very popular quote of the hills ‘Hussan paharan da’ which means ‘Beauty of the Hills’ is a common occurence.

So next time, if the day time long journey becomes boring, you very well know where to look around for entertainment.

OK TATA SEE YOU SOON.

 

Image source: truck art by Shutterstock.

 

 

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Rose

A woman of today ,I love to travel and live life simple and happy. Writing for me is an outlet to my emotions, which I can visit again and again. And yes learnt the hard read more...

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