A (Mobile) Work Of Art The Vibrant Home Of Indias Truckers

If you are asked to close your eyes and imagine a truck, the image in your mind can never be plain. The electric colours match the eccentric lines scrawled in a mix of Hindi and English script. On a regular day at Delhi&rsquos Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, you will spot at least one person squatting on the ground, elbow-deep in a can of paint. Although the endearing, mid-80s kitsch of elephant insignias and bulbous daffodils are fading, truckers still largely express themselves through the vehicle&rsquos art. 

Asif Dhan has been painting vibrant flowers and animals on trucks since the 80s and finds the new fad of subtle Urdu couplets less charming. &ldquoDrivers ask me to paint Shayari (Urdu poetry) or religious motifs. I rarely see the innocence and charm that once ruled.&rdquo 

Gone are the times when you would spot the huge elephants before noticing the truck itself. Now the tastes of drivers have become more sophisticated. 

A splashing start

Tracing the origins of this folk art, you will land in South Asia in the 1940s when the artworks were still small-scale, with mostly religious iconography and none of the loud innocence it developed over the years. Pop art and psychedelic images of cultural and political figures were introduced during the 60s. The most common elephant art came about after the Asian Games in 1982, with truckers wanting to have the elephant mascot on their vehicles. The stream of truck art quickly became the visual lexicon for many Southeast nations. With shocking canaries, velvety jades, and bright plums adorned with images, calligraphy, and distinct designs, truck art scaled the cultural heights to almost heritage status in India. In Pakistan, however, they took this folk art one step ahead in its brashness with excessively bright hues and quirky paintings.

Changing faces of the art

With recent policy changes clamping down on advertisements, quotes, shayaris, and couplets have also been banned on commercial trucks. Misogynistic images and slogans often antagonise traffic cops leading to fines levied on drivers. More drivers are opting to go the simple route and highlight responsible driving, with &lsquoHorn OK Please&rsquo and &lsquoUse Dipper At Night&rsquo being the most popular choices. Another favourite among the drivers is a totem of superstition to guard them against the evil eye. With drivers being on the road for months at a stretch, their trucks are their homes. &ldquoI have a nazar battu on my bumper. My wife wanted me to have that as she believes it will keep me safe,&rdquo says Tota Ram, a Delhi-based truck driver. A nazar battu is a devil face drawn as a bumper sticker to ward off buri nazar or the evil eye.

Fading colours

Customised radium tapes are hijacking the jobs of painters. Their painstaking efforts in hand-painting motifs and shayaris are now being forsaken for the cheaper and faster option of radium tapes. You only need to slap on the stickers, and the job is done in minutes instead of waiting at least a couple of days for the paint to dry. And then there is the cost. Many of the professional artists have no work these days, with the end of what was once a flourishing art form. 

Farid Bawa is an Amsterdam-based designer and design director at DDB Unlimited. Growing up, he would watch the beautiful artworks that graced the many trucks, thanks to his grandfather, who ran a transport business. Seeing the plight of the veteran artists, most of whom now bemoan the loss of prospective jobs, he founded All India Permit in 2017. &lsquoAs a passion project, I founded an organisation called All India Permit to promote and preserve the dying truck art form of India,&rsquo his LinkedIn bio proudly reads. The organisation has collaborated with various global brands like Levi Strauss, Vans, Apple and Google to create statement pieces for homes, offices, and bars and for different festivals. They make everything from hand-painted shoes to decorative pieces for office spaces and even curated playlists to restore the once glorious heritage of India&rsquos truck art and provide a livelihood for the artists. &ldquoHaving a chance to meet and work with the artists was an amazing opportunity to observe their craft first-hand and also to learn some of the key styles and techniques they use to create their beautiful work,&rdquo wrote Ben Davis of Google, London about a workshop conducted by All India Permit. 

The motley of symbols, unabashedly innocent slogans and the dizzying designs that once ran along the highway in a blur of colours may have taken a different direction. Still, the art of truck painting will always be a big part of India&rsquos heritage and the vibrancy of its culture.