Rawalpindi, Pakistan--Pakistan has long been known for the garish decorations with which drivers lovingly adorn the rickshaws and ageing Bedford trucks that ply the country's dusty roads and highways.
But political messages have also started claiming space on the vehicles -- and on social media -- in a country growing ever more anxious about free speech.
Look among the neon-bright flowers and birds and there are snippets of Urdu love poetry, whimsical couplets and increasingly, provocative slogans and satirical observations.
Slogans such as "Salute to Pakistan's military" and "I miss you after you stepped down" adorn trucks, alongside a painted portrait of 1960s military ruler Field Marshal Ayub Khan.
These hark back to the country's three periods of military rule -- seen by some Pakistanis as golden eras of calm and certainty in the nation's turbulent history.
Others comment on more contemporary issues, like the rickshaw driver lamenting the population's apathy about Pakistan's troubled condition with "Honk low, the nation is sleeping".
Malik Latif, 50, a painter and artist who draws colourful motifs and inscriptions on the mighty goods trucks in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, said the drivers like to use their vehicles to express themselves.
A truck parked nearby had a tiger painted on its rear with a famous quote from Tipu Sultan, an 18th-century prince revered in Pakistan for fighting against the British: "It is better to live one day as a tiger than 100 years as a jackal."
Another truck carries the inscription "Long Live Islam" over a colourful picture of a bird perched on a globe, symbolising the dominance of the religion in the country.
AFP
