A gigantic depiction of famed singer-songwriter Sidhu Moosewala painted on the back of a truck in Pakistan has lately gone viral as a tribute. Shahzad Bhatti, 30, from Pakistan’s Punjab state, owns the vehicle with Moosewala’s face on it.
The back of the truck is unique since it is normally designated for Pakistani national heroes, actors, and singers.
Haji Naz (65) of Peshawar, a painter who has spent more than five decades painting portraits on trucks in Pakistan, believes that a face painted on a truck symbolises people’s undying love for that individual.
He goes on to say that some drivers have photos of their family members painted, demonstrating how important space is to them.
Divya Bharti, Aishwarya Rai, and Mamta Kulkarni are among the few Indian actresses whose images are still painted on trucks in Pakistan. “Moosewala is perhaps the only Indian turbaned Sikh who has been given this space,” says Naz, who adds, “I am still painting Divya Bharti’s images on trucks.”
“It is due of his poor beginnings and struggle in life that people here relate with him,” Rizwan Mughal, son of a truck artist from Rawalpindi, said of Moosewala’s appeal in Pakistan. His songs were really true to life. Punjabi music is quite popular in this city.”
Moosewala had also promised his supporters a Pakistan tour with live gigs in Lahore and Islamabad “before 2022 ends” before he was assassinated.
In the 1950s, truck art arose in Peshawar and Karachi to meet the needs of drivers who wanted to make their vehicles seem respectable.
Slowly, this one-of-a-kind combination of colours and paintings, backed by locally manufactured handcrafted accessories, gained international acclaim.
In Pakistan’s Kohistan area, UNESCO employed this art form to raise awareness about girls’ education in 2019.
Ejaz Ullah Mughal recalls how officials from the Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) “used to criticise” truck painting when his father, late Habeeb, was one of the first truck artists in Rawalpindi in 1956.
Even now, people are known to spend anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 20 lakh in Pakistani money to have their vehicles painted. However, the art form is steadily fading away.
Truck painting has become more delicate and sophisticated with time, according to Tariq Ustaad, a Rawalpindi-based truck artist who has been in the business since 1971.
Niaz Gul, a Peshawar carrier, claimed that there was once a vogue to adorn buses, but that it died out over time.
