Punjabi trucks are painted. Panels, mudflaps, tailgates and cab interiors carry landscapes, peacocks, eyes against the evil eye, portraits of the Gurus or of film actors, and written couplets on the back.
The couplets are a genre. They are aimed at the driver behind, they are usually rhymed, often boastful, often mournful, and occasionally very good. Horn please, Buri nazar wale tera muh kala, and a long tail of two-line verses about mothers, distance, money and death.
The Pakistani side developed the more elaborate version, with hammered metal, reflective tape and full sculptural extensions, particularly at Rawalpindi and Karachi. The Indian Punjabi version is flatter and more text-heavy.
It is done by painters working in yards on the highway, usually without any training, learned by apprenticeship, and paid by the panel.
It is the largest body of public art in Punjab and none of it is collected, photographed systematically or credited to anyone.
The work is done at body-building shops in enamel on sheet metal, with the design fixed by convention: the eye motifs, the couplets on the tailboard, the horn on the roof, the chains under the bumper.
The couplets are the text of it. They are proverbs, warnings, jokes and lines of verse, and they are the most widely read Punjabi poetry in the region.
The Pakistani version is more elaborate and better documented. On the Indian side the tradition has thinned as fleets moved to standardised bodies and company liveries.