Truck Design

“Vehicles Art: Street Art Or
                              A Fashion Industry”

      Often when you travel on the GT road-- especially when you are not driving-- you have an experience to leisurely observe the huge trucks carrying loads, but it’s not important; what is the source of attraction is the artistic work done on the body of this vehicle. Commonly people think that it is all about the trucks only but I want to correct many of them to the best of my knowledge, that this art is not limited to trucks only but also in practice in other forms of vehicles, i.e. Local Buses, vans, Rickshaws, cabs, juice vendors' push carts and even motor cars are often decorated in this particular fashion. Art work on different types of vehicles by Pakistani locals is very famous throughout the world, whether in the form of abstract art or written statements.

HISTORY:
      Looking back in the history, this art was initiated in Mughal era. Initially people used their creativity on the walls of either mosques or castles, the material used for this purpose was, stones, paints and glass etc. the glimpses of their genius can still be seen , if you have the time to visit the great monuments of Lahore.
      After some time, artisans started experimenting the same artistic technique on “royal carts”, which happened to be very successful; Kings appreciated that and that is how this art start flourishing. The focus of attention was not the cart only, but the animal of the cart (horse) received special attention and used to be decorated with specially made “gotta or ribbons”, these embellishments were commonly used to beautify, its forehead, limbs and its back.
      As these specially decorated “Baghies” were used as mode of locomotion for the Mughal monarchs; that is how, this art approached the masses, they also started using the same art to decorate their “Tongas” but the material used by them was as simple as they were; they used “mehndi” to decorate their cart pulling... [continues]

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