Published: May 7, 2010

Houston, Texas (05-01-2010 – Pakistan Chronicle News): “We are adding more elements to the Pakistani Car for the Art Car Parade this weekend - a Faiz Ahmed Faiz Lyric with an image of him and Iqbal Bano. It would be great, if more and more Pakistanis can show up for the parade. Again, this is the first time a car designed by a Pakistani has been added to Art Car Parade: http://www.orangeshow.org/art-car-festival/”

This above is the invitation from Sehba Sarwar of Voices Breaking Boundaries (VBB), who this past weekend, organized a one-day colorful artwork gallery and documentary of Pakistani trucks near downtown Houston.

“We have arranged for exclusive Pakistani food; special documentary on the Colorful Artwork of Pakistani Trucks; and an extraordinary gallery of photos taken of this unique artwork. As you can see, mainly non-Pakistanis have come to see the exhibition, while Pakistani community is missing. Although it is good our fellow Americans are watching this work, but it would have been really pleasant on part of the Pakistani community to also come and intermingle with our fellow Americans while exchanging this gift of art and culinary with them:” These were the sentiments Sehba Sarwar, as she welcomed our media representative at the exhibition.

A documentary was shown, which has been prepared by the famous Durriya Kazi, an artists and expert on truck artwork of Pakistan. She called “Truck Art” as one of the great folk arts of Pakistan. Drivers of the trucks would call their heavy machines affectionately as “brides”, as such trucks are covered mostly in vivid bright multilayered colors and fairy lights, which have a talismanic function of warding off evil spirits and promote good luck – something one needs in plenty when navigating through rough roads. For instance one of the famous pictures is of fish throwing flowers from mouth, which signifies good luck in business and also has religious significance in the tale of Hadhrat Khizer and prophet coming out of the stomach of the fish.

Apart from this magical effect, truckers have another romance with these brightly colored vehicles, where goods and commercial companies jumped into the art competition and entire fleets of trucks came to workshops to be painted in designs exclusively created for each corporate competitor. A nation of more than 160 million people needed loads of supplies to be hauled from one part of Pakistan to another, So Bedford, Hino, Volvo, Isuzu and Mercedes ‘ heavy machines traveled in form of chained caravans. Now truck painting is recognized as a form of cultural diversity. Decorated brides of truck drivers move in splendor all across the country with unprecedented pomp and show. It also signifies the time in which one is living; like during General Zia time, several religious pictures and Mujahadins fighting the communists in Afghanistan came onto the trucks. Trucks are also famous for excellent poetry done by unknown poets in various languages of the region.

For more information about VBB’s programming, E-Mail info@vbbarts.org or visit website www.vbbarts.org

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