Truck Art in Pakistan (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Truck Art in Pakistan (2018)

mymodernmet.com

235 pointsbrudgers88 comments

Somewhat related, the Youtube channel Pakistani truck (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC64FbxoHfUWd5hykYk5_BvQ/vid...). Here's a good example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E3TnJX61Oo

It's absolutely amazing how good of work they do using ridiculously crude tools. Extremely skilled people. I strongly recommend you don't watch if you're a manager or OSHA inspector, though.

They have a pretty well set up shop. Big (enough for what they need) lathe, mill, welders a multitude of presses and typical power tools. What they don't have is ubiquitous power tools for each and every job. Those are characteristic of high labor cost environments. All the "crude" stuff is just job specific tooling that you amass over they years.

Someone needs to teach them how to properly install rivets (they would be substantially stronger with no additional work if they heated the whole body) and the one guy who actually welds properly needs to teach the rest of them to do so too.

> You know that guy standing in the back by the lathe is the apprentice when he's eating sparks from the grinder.

Where/how can I donate some protection gear to them?

Here is another article about the painted trucks.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200502/masterpieces.to...

I was trying to find out why people started building wooden crowns on top of the Bedford trucks in the first place, but no luck... Did the crowns come first, and then get painted, or did the art come first, and then people added the crowns in order to create more surface area for the art?

I would suspect the crowns were originally to hold more of a load - especially if it is something bulky but relatively light.

True. I know they can bear enough weight for a couple of adults, at least.

I remember my father telling the story of how he drove one of these trucks across the country in his early twenties, hauling sugarcane. He would sleep on the crown at night.

It might be worthwhile seeing what was in use before trucks; to me it looks like the crowns might be making the trucks resemble prior animal-drawn wagons...

I respect & appreciate talent of Pakistanis in art & music. They have some legendary singers. Not sure it is the language (Urdu) giving them that skill or they are natively talented.

It's because the Mughal Kings who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for a couple of hundred years really promoted art and music (instead of science and technology, I might add).

https://www.thefridaytimes.com/where-the-mughals-got-their-m...

Ironically, few past leaders were barely able to speak eloquent Urdu. Pakistani elites grew speaking English. Khan can barely speak his own Pashto, and only so, so Urdu.

Urdu is the native language of a very small number of Pakistanis, mostly the 3% of the population that descend from families that moved from India at independence, the Mojahirs. Punjabi and Sindhi are mother tongue to far more people.

Pakistani here. While that is true, everyone speaks Urdu. If you have a regional language you can grow up speaking both languages fluently, or just one—depending on which you're more exposed to—and even English if you were educated in it.

For example, my dad's regional language was Seraiki, and my mom's Punjabi, and they speak both and Urdu fluently. I grew up in an area where the regional language was Punjabi. But, I'm not as fluent in Punjabi or Seraiki as I am in Urdu.

However, I've never had trouble using Urdu with someone in Pakistan, even if their regional language was Sindhi, Pashto or Hindko. Also, I don't know why if it's just me, but most regional languages sound very similar—I've had conversations where I spoke Urdu while the other person spoke in a regional language.

Yeah, apart from Brahui all the languages of Pakistan are Indo-Aryan or Baluch, which is closer to Persian (Farsi). Urdu is part of the Hindustani dialect continuum that stretches across the North of the Indian subcontinent. Speaking three of these languages is like speaking Spanish, Italian and Portugese. Standards are different, vocabulary will differ quite a lot. The intelligibility you speak of is in part the product of 70 years of tv, radio and education though. Smoothing out of dialectal differences. Hindi is the same in North India. Not surprising since Urdu and Hindi are pretty much the same language bar the writing system and scientific/technical/legal/formal vocabulary.

I'm from Nepal and Urdu and Hindi sound similar to me. I can understand most Pakistanis pretty well, even though I only know Hindi.

As per the 1998 census, 7.6% of the population usually speaks Urdu in their household.

http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/other/yearbook2007...

I’m sure there are plenty of people who aren’t Mohajirs who speak Urdu at home but a lot of those people are going to be making a political statement more than one that a linguist would agree with. You see the same shading of reality in Ireland where 10% of the population say they speak Irish weekly or in Ukraine where the number of people who said they were native speakers of Ukrainian rather than Russian jumped dramatically after the Russian invasion.

I understand what you are saying, but I think a likelier explanation is that a small percentage of the population of modern day Pakistan were already Urdu speakers before partition.

I am open to changing my mind or confirming my theory, given empirical evidence.

To give you an example, listen to Waseem Akhtar criticizing Ch. Nisar.

https://youtu.be/qeXlgNZTcmA

You can tell by his grammar that his family belongs to UP.

Mohajir, you seem to have the 'h' and 'j' interchanged.

I will remember.

I saw this playing on a Pakistani's colleagues desk walking past, intrigued he sent me the link.

Play with CC, the atmosphere and lyrics I find of this live piece is magical. I still come back to it occasionally.

https://youtul.be/gjaH2iuoYWE

I would recommend going down that rabbit hole (specially Coke Studio videos with CC) sometime. There are many more magical ones in there.

Some of my favs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra5nTlty6CM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgmqIpIbBVY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDkCEFmYfE4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzdMLhGOIhA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzb6uI7xRA8

(Enable CC and read along)

Thanks for sharing this. Coke Studio is amazing. I have introduced many friends to Pakistani music with Coke Studio. Almost everyone loves it. Got friends who keep asking me for links to same videos, lol.

This is the correct url: https://youtu.be/gjaH2iuoYWE

Lol you should find the videos of his dad if you like those

Perhaps it's a typo, but youtul(dot)be is probably not a link anyone wants to click on.

Wow, this is one of the most ear-catching songs I have ever heard. Thank you for sharing.

The instrument he is using with bells is called chimta (literally, tongs)

Punjabi folk is quite beautiful. Sufi music is great, and the lyrically it's profoundly beautiful.

For someone who's new to it I think Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is good gateway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0gND07edEI

And for something more poppy, Nazia Hassan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7zm5XTvIT8

I'm a big fan of Nasreddin stories, so could someone please give me an ELI5 condensation of the role of Sufism within wider islamic thought?

It's basically just people who go deep on the spirituality part of religion, with very intense prayer and meditation, very focused lifestyle, etc. Religiously they generally adhere to the mainstream schools of Islam and consider themselves part of the wider religious community.

The more recent movement of Salafism, centered in Saudi Arabia, has made Sufism one of their targets in their quest to 'clean up' Islam, since it doesn't fit into their back-to-basics view on religion. So there is quite a big schism now between this movement and its followers, and the general community (for whom Sufism is an ingrained, and often treasured, tradition).

Highly recommended to check this out, truck art on a Cessna aircraft from Lahore, Pakistan

https://www.dawn.com/news/1599063

Edit: for more context and history around Pakistani truck art: https://www.dawn.com/news/1278386

Not as highly decorated, but in Latin America they do something similar with buses. They're typically brightly painted old school buses. They're referred as "chicken buses" and tend to be the cheapest travel option.

They look like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=chicken+bus&client=firefox-b...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_bus

A similarly garish subculture exists in Japan:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekotora

I've never seen one on the road though. I wonder if it's just a car show kinda thing.

The paskistani trucks remind me more of Philippine Jeepneys[1] than the japanese art trucks. The art 18-wheelers in Japan can get pretty crazy though[2]. Some look like casinos on wheels.

[1] http://neocha.com/magazine/art-of-the-jeepney/

[2] https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/08/29/the-japanese-subcu...

I love dekotora

3 minute video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB5cu7fiJr0

True, they are not ubiquitous, but I have seen some on the highway.

They are usually very loud so you hear them before your see them.

This looks terrible for wind resistance and fuel efficiency, no?

Also, Pakistan is home to a wealth of consistently great tech talent. I always call out Pakistan, Vietnam, and Ukraine when sourcing software developers on upwork. Just a tip. (I'm partial to Vietnam as well but tbh they have a very low English proficiency level.)

Depending on the speeds it may not make much of a difference - wind resistance is the square or cube of speed and those dirt roads don’t look too fast.

I was thinking the same. Across a large fleet of vehicles, this must add up to significant excess fuel consumption and emissions?

> drivers can easily spend up to $2,500 for a basic paint job, which is two years' salary

The two years' salary is for drivers, and drivers usually don't own their trucks. It is probably not the drivers spending on the paint job, but the owners.

There's a nice book Truck De India: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50840378-truck-de-ind... which describes the lives of truckers in India but much of it holds true for it's neighbouring countries too.

And there's a nice Podcast with the author of this book, even he mentions about how expansive the art of painting and decorating the trucks is in Pakistan: https://seenunseen.in/episodes/2020/9/27/episode-192-the-lon...

For some it's art, for others it's an accident hazard. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against painting the trucks, but these wooden "crowns" would lead to the truck being declared not roadworthy in any Western country. At best, they only increase the truck's weight and fuel consumption, at worst they can fall off and make accidents worse...

The simple fact that these trucks and their owners don't give a damn about western countries is enough to counter any arguments. They're made the way they are to carry as much load as possible, and the decorations hold a sentimental value to the owners. Many of these owners own a maximum of 2 to 3 trucks and their livelihood depends on it. Considering that the profession runs in the family, it's not difficult to attach sentimental value to these vehicles.

Of course "not giving a damn" counters an argument about endangering the people around you.

But anyway your comment seems to be a sentimental defense of some sorts, so I guess it doesn't really matter

They probably know about all the things you mentioned better than you, since it's their livelihood.

As a local, I got quite sick of those garish monstrosities since childhood. Maybe it's the warm climate that just makes all the clashing colors uncomfortable and annoying to look at, everywhere and every day.

I appreciate the more tasteful decor of buses etc in the West or countries like the UAE. My favorite though is the cute-ification of public vehicles in Japan which is on a whole another level :)

This sort of thing makes me happy it exists somewhere, and also sad at how quickly you'd be pulled over, charged, and have your car crushed into a cube under "hoon" laws here in the police state known as 'straya.

Good to see Pakistan related post on HN

True, but as someone who grew up in Pakistan, these trucks are generally regarded as an eye sore.

why?

Because upper class Pakistanis have a “colonized” mindset and tend to believe that true quality culture must be imported. Additionally, egalitarianism is not a value as it is in the USA, so working class art is generally looked down on.

I dunno, the USA has a massive class divide - think of the stigmas associated with subcultures (e.g. "hillbillies", "white trash"), race, where people live (suburbs or "the projects"), and of course relative financial status (the 1%, the 0.1% who might as well be living in an entirely different country compared to the working poor).

That's also part of the truth.

The trucks are often not maintained well mechanically so there is a real danger when sharing the road with them. Secondly, from my anecdotal experience they are driven carelessly and there is a genuine fear factor from them.

Also, Pakistani people generally have an avant-garde attitude towards flamboyancy. So this art kind of gets bucketed in that.

I was surprised by this. I'd expect a beaten up truck (as most are) would be poorly maintained and expendable in a wreck whereas a highly personalized vehicle would be much less likely to be damaged in crash by the driver given the time and money involved. I'm a huge fan or personalizing vehicles.

The only concern I have is - changes to center of gravity with these additions.

I encourage you to Google images for "overloading trucks pakistan". Those pictures are the norm.

I've often had to drive slowly behind a truck on a main road because the truck's load was hanging off the top, and out the sides and blocked the adjacent lanes. And yes, these trucks are huge.

I saw a jingle truck in Afghanistan that was piled so high with hides that I was surprised it wasn't falling over, the pile extended far above the height of the cabin.

When empty maybe, a loaded truck isn't going to have many issues with a wooden tiara over the cab

Probably because of their kitsch and garish appearance; quote, "an eye sore".

An American trucker recently told me trucking is 90% about looking cool.

Apparently in the US and Canada, brands are heavily segmented for cultural reasons. Large fleets buy modern, streamlined trucks from Volvo and Freightliner (Mercedes) to save on fuel, while self-employed truckers buy Peterbilt and Kenworth that look like they haven't changed since the 70s.

Though the latter have the added benefit of fewer breakdowns, due to older designs having beefier parts, but also weigh more and burn more diesel.

There is a shaggy dog story in which the setup is that a child asks a cowboy why he wears various items, and he patiently explains the hat is for the sun, the bandanna for the dust, etc. etc., and the punchline is along the lines of "but mister, why are you wearing gym shoes?" "I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a trucker, now would I?"

(I've visited a long-haul trucker convention near Interlaken once or twice. With eyes open, it looks like [a european's idea of] the US due everyone dressing in "country". With eyes closed, one hears schlager and smells currywurst, and the true location becomes obvious.)

Latching on to your comment; I wanted to say, US truckers (and car culture as a whole) do some extravagant stuff with their vehicles as well. Airbrushing, lots of chrome and lights, etc. Mind you, a lot of that is still within reason as they're used daily for work.

Apparently other long objects need to be used for compensational purposes, I see.

The linkage between flamboyance and business is really cool! Truck hire must be very direct for this to work.

I am very much not at all familiar with Pakistan or any area outside of "the west", but I think a lot of business is done a lot more ad hoc and informal elsewhere compared to my cultural background. Things like haggling about a price or tipping are mostly foreign concepts to me, whereas they're both normal elsewhere in the world.

On the other hand, we have bitterballen, snert and gezelligheid.

bitterballen should be controlled under the nuclear arms limitation treaty and FEBO shut down for trafficking. This message was authorised by the roof of my mouth.

https://youtu.be/WlriwanO4e4

If you prefer watching a video on the topic, vox has made pretty great video on truck art in north western India

Pretty.

Those single rear axles though. They are the arch (ahem) enemies of a well metalled road.

Pakistan is also world leader in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery

Gas must be cheap in Pakistan.

I had the same thought.

It's $2.495 per gallon, according to [1]. That's €0.57 per liter, which is about a third of the price here in Sweden so "yes" to me.

[1]: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Pakistan/gasoline_prices/

However, it is much more expensive on a PPI basis compared to western countries.

I just paid $2.359 / Gallon here in Washington State, so not cheaper to me.

Not quite! It's on expensive side when compared to avg income.

It feels comparatively very cheap in US.

I can second this. The price is considered very expensive and every increase is met with huge criticism.

(Also hi Asad, great seeing you!)

severely undermines any aerodynamics and leads to higher fuel consumption

Well yeah but that's not the point. Not everything is about min-maxing profit and environmental concerns.

I watched Mark Weins when he was in Pakistan. Interestingly, during multiple half an hour videos, filmed on obviously very busy streets, there was absolutely no female in sight. Such a disgusting country.

As a local with lots of family outside the few "moderate" urban bubbles (which are still far behind other societies in terms of freedom for women) this is very true and indeed depressing at best.

Not even kidding. If I opened my photo albums, you'd see barely 10 photos in a 100 that have women walking by themselves (alone, unchaperoned and out of a burqa) in those places.

This disparity has a far reaching influence over how Pakistani males interact with females in other countries, leading to Tinder profiles explicitly saying "No Pakistanis" (and sometimes Indians) in places with a large number of Indo/Pakistani expats, like Dubai.

Different marketplaces have different gender distributions. The electronics market will usually be majority male. The cloth/clothing market will be majority female. Also, your comment branding an entire country as disgusting reveals more about your character than it does about Pakistan.

I grew up in Karachi, and this "absence of women" is an alien concept to me. It is common for competing stores selling nearly the same product to be next to each other, organically forming a whole street market with hundreds of stores specializing in products of one theme. There's an electronics parts market, an LED bulbs market, a used books market, a glass market, a kitchen-ware market, a used clothing market, the pirated software media market. This makes the markets loosely gender-segregated - auto parts markets don't attract as many Pakistani women as the dresses markets do.

Search on YouTube for "crazy sale Pakistani women". :)

Not endorsing the super parent comment's outrageous conclusions, but...

I'm not sure I follow. I grew up in Lahore, and there is an absence of women out of specific market places where they feel safe to go to. This is anecdotal, but if you walk from one point in a city, even Karachi, to another, you'll encounter far more men than women.

Additionally, Pakistani culture conflates honor with literally the "veil" (_pardah_)[0]. When the motorway rape happened the Lahore Capital City Police Officer put the blame on the victim for "travelling late at night without her husband's permission".[1]

I'm just saying, there really is an "absence of women" and the reasons are cultural associations with honor and decency. Acknowledging the problem is a step towards fixing it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdah

[1]: https://www.dawn.com/news/1582117

How you being unable to see a women in a video make a whole country disgusting?

You realize there’s more than one part of the country?

common attitude there is if i'm marrying a man why should i be out working, perhaps you saw a commercial market

Reply on news.ycombinator.com