Truck de India!

by Rajat Ubhaykar

  And it is an affair that begins with a ‘chassis’—the bare-bones metallic framework that holds together the engine, tyres, suspension, exhaust system and steering box. Truck manufacturers usually supply only the chassis to drivers. Building the rest is the job of men like Mewa Singh. To put it in other words, every truck you’ve seen has been painstakingly assembled, piece by piece, by a highly specialised group of carpenters and decorators, using their bare hands and a few basic tools.

  At the apex of this group is the ustad—the master artisan who is well-versed with everyone else’s trade. The ustad, who is absent today, can carve the map of India onto aluminium sheets using just his hand without a stencil, one of the workers tells me in awe. Mewa Singh too claims to be an ustad. He rolls up his sleeves and says, ‘For years and years, I have done all this work myself. Even today, if I took it upon myself, I will do it faster than most of the lot here.’

  However, given his current circumstances of plenty, Mewa Singh soon retreats to his air-conditioned cabin for some ‘urgent work’. I walk around and speak to the artisans, seeking to understand how a truck goes from chassis to full-fledged truck. Many of them are intrigued to see a man in shorts roaming around with a notebook in hand, and look up curiously from their task at hand.

  I learn that the raw materials that go in making truck bodies are plywood, sunmica, iron, aluminium, radium tape and Malaysian/Indian sal wood. Sal wood is the most vital determinant of robustness (scientifically termed shorea robusta for its durability and sturdiness). Truckers claim sal bodies constructed in Sirhind can carry up to 65 tons of high-density load such as marble and other construction materials regularly, as opposed to 25-30 tons in other trucks. Transport companies involved in commissioning overloaded marble and Kota stone trucks usually prefer to have them constructed in Sirhind or Nagaur, a truck body-building centre in Rajasthan.

  The process is elaborate. First, a metal and wood exoskeleton of a cabin is erected over the driver’s seat. The sides of the truck are then boarded with rectangular iron slabs stretching up to three-fourths of its height. The rest of the body consists of sal wood slabs, painted the same colour as the iron slabs. The base of the body that bears the weight of the load is also made of sal wood.

  One group of workers welds the exoskeleton into place and another group nails it with iron sheets lending the truck a metallic aspect. The gaps in the cabin superstructure are covered with slabs of sal wood and plastered with iron sheets replete with geometrical aluminium shapes nailed to them, lending the cabin a sturdy metallic appearance contiguous with the rest of the truck.

  Once the cabin exterior is finished, the interior decorators get to work according to the preferences of the drivers, which include customizations such as hidden cabinets (to hide contraband) and radium tape (to make the cabin glow in the night). Then, the electricians arrive and set up the music system and the fan. Once both the truck body and cabin are done, the truck is spray-painted. And finally, the artists arrive and finish the typography and illustrations.

  Apart from the workers, Mewa Singh’s two sons also stroll around the facility in Rin-white kurtas, as if trumpeting their physical separation from the grime of their trade. They walk with both hands behind their back, purportedly supervising the work, but mostly projecting authority through their considerable corpulence. Mewa Singh’s nephew, who runs a truck spare parts shop in the same compound saunters into the workshop, sporting low-waist jeans that seem designed to show off his Jockey underwear, an unseemly sight of multinational prosperity in the rusty environs of the workshop.

  Noticing me interrupting the workers’ jobs, one of the sons in a shockingly pink turban and an insignificant beard walks up to me and asks me to talk to one person at a time in a discreet corner. But there are no discreet corners and the workers walk up to me repeatedly to ask what I’m doing with a notebook. He finally directs accountant and man Friday, Sitaram Swarn Mandal, a frail man with an air of quiet and servile efficiency, to chaperone me.

  But Mandal is disinterested. I soon manage to give him the slip and approach Jagdish Sharma, a decorator hailing from Madhubani district in Bihar, who’s engrossed in cutting perfect geometrical shapes—stars, triangles, squares—out of aluminium strips and nailing them to iron chaddar (sheets). Up to thirty feet of iron chaddar is used in covering up a truck, he tells me.

  Sharma is one among the twenty other workers in this workshop, segregated by functionality— electricians, welders, decorators, body-makers, cabin-makers, painters and fluorescent radium tape artisans. Each group performs their specific task with utter obliviousness to their surroundings in a loose assembly line. Their work timings are from 10 am to 9 pm with a lunch break from 1–2 pm and holidays on Sunday.

  There are only two Sikh workers in an army of Biharis, mostly from Madhubani district. Sharma is one of them. Sporting a neat moustache and impossibly spotless clothes, he tells me that Madhubani art has a long history and as a result, people hailing from the region are well-versed in design and decoration, apparently by sheer weight of heritage. (I had also previously encountered people from Madhubani in the jewellery industry in Mumbai, hunched up over intricate moulds with equal sincerity.)

  In the usual course of work, a truck-body takes around a month to be mounted on the chassis. Presently, around 7–8 trucks are being hammered at in varying degrees of progress—some are skeletal iron structures with a steering box and wheels, some are incompletely fortified with iron and wood, while others in the final stages of windup are being spray-painted with a hose, the green residue finding its way onto everybody’s clothes.

  Hovering around the workers are the owner-drivers keen on ensuring their truck is being made exactly according to their specifications. For around a month when their truck-body is being made, they stay in the accommodation arranged by Mewa Singh.

  I soon discover that most of the owner-drivers lounging on crudely welded iron chairs smoking cigarettes are Kashmiris and Ladakhis. I get talking with Farooque, a lean, slit-eyed man with a smile that makes him seem strangely snake-like. He tells me many villages in Kashmir claim truck driving as their dominant village occupation. Farooque himself hails from a village of 300 households near Anantnag (or Islamabad, as he calls it as an afterthought) with more than 100 truckers. He drives with his brother Shaukat who’s fifteen years younger to him.

  On the matter of truck bodies, he tells me the designs Kashmiris prefer are different from others and they are also willing to shell out more. ‘If a Punjabi spends one lakh on decoration, the Kashmiri will spend two lakh,’ he says proudly. Kashmiri trucks usually have Allah’s name right in the front in both English and Urdu scripts. Also, unlike other trucks, the imagery is devoid of living beings, even religious figures—the representation of living creatures being forbidden in Islam as an intrusion on Allah’s prerogative. Instead, their bodies and cabin interiors are covered in beautiful geometric and floral designs, a sort of kitsch arabesque. The cabins are also more luxurious, replete with plush sofas, radium tape and LCD screens for evening entertainment. In their opulence, the Kashmiri trucks share more in common with our western neighbour than India. Pakistani truck art has attracted accolades from across the world for its intricacy and startling beauty.

  I ask them why they travel over 500 kilometres from Kashmir to dusty Sirhind. Shaukat says it’s because Sirhind is one of the few places where they know how to build the truck according to Kashmiri conventions. They also prefer the sturdiness of Sirhind trucks. The wood is not visible, he says. ‘And sal lakad is so strong that even after 20–25 years it remains durable and doesn’t rot upon exposure to water.’

  While Farooque has passed the 10th standard, Shaukat has also finished a BA and MA. He says he came into trucking because he had no other options. ‘Jobs for educated youth are hard to come by,’ he says. ‘There are some jobs in cold storage and cement factories that have come up, but for most youth, the option is between working in an apple orchard or getting into government service.
But the latter is more difficult, since Urdu medium education has dissuaded many Kashmiris from appearing for competitive exams.’

  Which is why trucking makes sense. While there are many risks, Farooque tells me he manages to pocket a cool Rs 50,000 a month on average. ‘Of course, the earnings increase during the apple season. Overloading is the norm so we manage to make up to one lakh. But business is lean now. The floods last year have taken back the economy by ten years.’ It’s only then that I recall barely nine months have passed since the floodwaters of September 2014 receded from Kashmir. I pray the roads aren’t completely washed out.

  On the subject of apples, Farooque gets quite animated, going as far as to claim it is at the root of the India–Pakistan dispute. ‘It’s because of our apples that India will never cede territory to Pakistan. The army occupation is to ensure that apples and dry fruits are sent to India and not to Pakistan, which is much closer. But I don’t really blame them. Kashmiri apples are the best in the world,’ he says. I can’t help but chuckle.

  However, the insurgency in Kashmir hasn’t left his village untouched. More than fifty boys from his village have disappeared; some have crossed over to Pakistan while others are presumed dead, probably buried in some unmarked grave. ‘Militants are like heroes to us. He is one among us who has laid down his life for the people fighting against zulm (oppression),’ says Shaukat. The frank expression of this proscribed view is unsettling, but I realize it’s not surprising given that Anantnag and neighbouring districts in south Kashmir have emerged as the epicentre of the insurgency in the last few years.

  I’m curious about what their experience of ‘India’, as they call it, has been like. Unsurprisingly, it’s not been a happy one. Farooque tells me trucks with Kashmiri number plates are targeted by the police and RTO officials because they travel especially long distances with lots of cash. ‘The Delhi Police is the worst. Just to enter Delhi, we have to pay as much as Rs 4000, so we try to avoid going there altogether. We prefer transporting apples to Ahmedabad where the people are more fair and hospitable,’ he says. Shaukat on the other hand narrates to me with a mixture of contempt and incredulity, the story of how a passerby in Bihar demanded Rs 50 simply to help with directions.

  But much worse fates have befallen some of the truckers from their village. ‘One driver we know was beaten mercilessly near Bangalore when his apple truck was waylaid. The truck and its contents—over thousand petis of apples—was looted, along with rupees fifty thousand from the driver. With several broken ribs and concussions, he was able to resume driving only after three years.’ Shaukat’s account is a rude reminder of how brutal the highway can be if your luck runs out. On its glossy tarmac, life and death are forever engaged in a race to the finish.

  In the midst of all these serious grievances about India, the only things that seem to bind them to the country is Bollywood. The brothers are big fans of Sanjay Dutt. ‘Once when he came to Kashmir for shooting, I was among the crowd that mobbed him. I remember one guy had even jumped on the windshield of Dutt’s car to catch a glimpse,’ laughs Shaukat.

  I ask them what they miss about Kashmir the most when they’re on a trip. ‘The water,’ says Farooque. ‘Water in Kashmir is something else. Water everywhere else in India seems salty after that. Whenever I’m on a trip in India, the one thing I look forward to the most is a sip of water from our village spring.’

  Another reason to go to Kashmir, I think to myself, making futile attempts at fanning myself with my tiny pocket notebook in the 40°C heat.

  ‘Also, that there are no mosquitoes out there,’ adds Shaukat.

  I can scarcely believe my ears. Could that be true? A land with no mosquitoes? The only place that had seemed possible was Scandinavia. Why, that might just be the clinching reason why the Mughal emperor Jahangir emphatically said of Kashmir, ‘Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast (If there is Paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this).’

  As the flames of the late afternoon sun taste my overheated head, I cannot wait to roll into Srinagar on a truck, the chilly breeze lacerating my face in pleasant agony. But that is still some time away, I think to myself, as a member of the Punjab police with a giant posterior and corrupt demeanor walks into the workshop, his presence jerking me back to reality. One of Mewa Singh’s sons rushes out to greet him and they walk out for a discreet chat. I grab the chance to get talking with the man I had been looking forward to meeting the most—Vinod Kumar, truck artist.

  Truck art in India dates back to the 1940s when the demands of World War II led to a proliferation of military-issue trucks in the country which were subsequently painted and personalized by their new owners, the new kings of the road. As a research paper from Pakistan, where the art has been elevated to dazzling heights, puts it:

  The cab itself can be seen as a king’s throne room. The structure above the cab, called tellingly a taj or crown, recalls the Jharoka or balcony from which the king would see and be seen. The seats refer to the rich silk and brocade textiles associated with kings, the ceiling is adorned with interpretations of the sheesh mahal or the palace of mirrors, a favourite architectural device of Mughal kings… The paintings depict the animals and scenic views most admired by the common man both for the qualities they represent as well as the lifestyle they imply—an ideal quite removed from their everyday experience of dry dusty routes and crowded cities.

  The roots of the art, however, may lie much further back. It’s a question worth pondering upon—why are raucously decorated trucks a unique feature of the subcontinent? The answer may have to do with the fact that goods transport in India was always a rather colourful business. Art historians like Nuzhat Kazmi hold that truck art is a carryover from the tradition of decorating beasts of burden practiced by the ancient trading communities of India such as the Banjaras. These communities didn’t just ride their bullocks and camels in the hard-nosed, utilitarian fashion Europeans rode horses. They decked up their bullocks; they braided the hair of their camels; they worshipped them; and even allowed them to dictate the tribe’s course of action. Sample this 19th century report on the Banjaras:

  The Banjaras of Central India have a curious form of ox-worship: they have a certain bullock in each tanda (caravan) devoted to the god Balaji and call it Hatadia (Sanskrit for “which is an extra sin to kill”). No burden is ever laid on it; it is decorated with streamers of red-dyed silk and tinkling bells, with many brass chains and rings on the neck and feet, strings of cowrie shells and silken tassels hanging in all directions. It moves at the head of the tanda, and the place where it lies down, they make their halting place for the day. At its feet they make their vows when difficulties overtake them; and in illness whether of themselves or their cattle, they trust to its worship as a cure.

  This sense of attachment and reverence was evidently transferred to trucks as they replaced bullock carts as the predominant means of goods transport. In Sirhind, truck art as a vocation has been practiced since the 1970s. And today, Kumar is one of the thousands of truck artists who ply their trade across India. He is a swarthy, taciturn man from Shamli in Muzaffarnagar district, presently applying frantic brushstrokes on the back of a truck. He tells me he’s been doing this for the last twelve years, executing both the typography and the imagery. He gets paid Rs 600 per truck which he shares with a partner. It usually takes him from morning till the late afternoon to finish painting one truck.

  He sketches from his imagination. His repertoire includes verdant mountain scenery, cows and calves, Taj Mahals, peacocks, eagles perched on globes, lettering with 3D effects—all of which spills over from the ends of his paintbrush with practiced ease. The imagery he draws is usually dictated by the owner’s demands but it nevertheless manages to follow a loose artistic convention that seems to run through most of Indian truck art.

  I watch him as he traces the rough outline of a demure woman in chaniya-choli on the back of a truck. He then applies broad daubs of paint to prepare the bas
e colours of the scenery. He lets the base dry for half an hour and then returns to apply the finishing touches.

  I take advantage of this break to pester him with some questions. Quite significantly, Kumar tells me he’s a kalakaar (artist) saying no other adjective is fit to describe him. ‘After all, it all comes out of here,’ he says, touching his forehead. However, his creativity is constrained by the Central Motor Vehicle Rules which mandates him to paint a social message such as ‘Hum Do Hamare Do’ or ‘AIDS Se Bacho’, the mobile number and name of the transport company, and All India Permit (AIP) on the trucks. This is in addition to the often whimsical personal mottos that owners demand form the leitmotif of the truck. ‘Malik Ki Gaadi, Driver Ka Pasina, Chalti Hai Sadkon Par Bankar Haseena (The owner’s vehicle, the driver’s sweat, she struts on the highway like a belle)’, says one. Meanwhile, there are many competing claims to the title of ‘Road King’.

  The sun is now setting, and another round of chai is distributed in the workshop. Mewa Singh’s assistant walks out of the cabin and motions me to accompany him inside. It’s time for a chat with the Big Boss.

  Like a feudal lord, sixty-four-year-old Mewa Singh reigns over a cavernous cabin, surrounded by supplicants meekly hunched in chairs lined up against the walls. I can’t tell if they’re awaiting their turn to have a word with their sardar, or just enjoying the gifts of air conditioning. Cabinets carved into the walls are occupied by portraits of Sikh gurus juxtaposed incongruously with spare headlights and taillights. On the wall behind Mewa Singh are both Hindu and Muslim calendars, beside a life-size map of India. There are numerous old group photos with strapping sardars striking celebratory poses beside trucks, in what are undoubtedly various memorable landmarks in the life of Mewa Singh & Co.