Water-Truck Poetry
Here's a shot out of my window on the way home from church a couple weeks ago. The water trucks glut the road and make traffic difficult. One redeeming aspect is that the trucks are colorful and seem to have creative designs all over them. When I crept up on this truck I noticed something more creative than usual... poetry on the back bumper! Below is a cropped picture for your close-up viewing.
"Mountains can fly = River can dry; You can for - get me = But I can not you"
If anyone knows Urdu out there perhaps you can tell me if this is a typical Pakistani poem or something else that I'm not familiar with. (I'm just guessing it's Pakistani). Help from the readers?
3 comments:
Hi,
You are right about this being Pakistani. If you come here to Pakistan, and go to the Northern Areas, you can see a lot of these trucks fully decorated with all kinds of motifs and floral patterns. You can spend a long time just admiring the art on these trucks.
The poetry you read on the back is not anything famous. I read out the saying in Urdu, and I can't recall any famous songs or poetry. I gather this must be an ode from the driver to his wife back home.
It's a massive problem for certain men who come to Middle East as labor, and are not allowed to bring their wife or kids because they fall below the salary limit. Because of this situation, a lot of the married men who are forced to live a single life here in the Middle East often use such sayings to convey their sentiments.
M
Thanks M! Very helpful insights. I think you're probably right about a driver missing his family.
By the way, the driver's name is Asif Khan! :-)
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