Unit2 Customs and Traditions News journal [sm The following text is about truck art, the elaborate decoration of massive transport trucks in Pakistan. Kaleidoscopes on wheels Paragraph 1 All over Pakistan, but particularly in Quetta, Dera Ghazi Khan, Peshawar, Mansehra, Rawalpindi, and Karachi, you will see them: men and boys working in the booming truck-painting industry. To a background noise of traffic and blaring music, these highly skilled truck artists continue the tradition of decorating enormous trucks with a dazzling kaleidoscope of folk art. No wonder that these 5 masterpieces on wheels have become a tourism symbol for Pakistan, now recognized all over the world. Paragraph 2 Today's truckers are the successors of many generations of traders who transported goods by camel caravan along roughly similar routes from the coast of Pakistan inland to Central Asia. The tradition of dressing up the camels for the caravan is 10 an ancient one, and just as the camel decorations identified the traders’ various ethnic groups, so today’s truck art tells you where the truck has come from, and its driver’s ethnic group. No one can mistake a Dera Ghazi Khan truck, for example, With its paintings of flowers, fairies, mountains, and streams, along with lines of poetry in the Seraiki language. See side panels painted with vibrant F-16 jets, 15 Shaheen missiles and cut-out peacocks, and on the back a larger-than-life portrait of Field Marshal Ayub Khan and film star Reema, and you know the truck is from Rawalpindi, much closer to the capital. Truck art is big business in Pakistan. Karachi, the port city of 14 million people, is said to employ over 50,000 people in small family-run paint workshops. Like a 20 medieval guild, a typical Pakistani workshop employs a set of skilled ae for ~_ this highly specialized work. An electrician installs wiring; a metalworker fashions " artefacts such as the dangling leaf chains; a carpenter carves arabesque" inlays on OXFORD 24nit 2 Customs and Traditions i iders wi ith si Id thread, Th {ders window flaps with silver and gold thr 6 vith delicate layers and glazes, whilst his assistant 9g jers. There is even a poet on hand to write an cab doors; an upholsterer embi master painter creates images Wi helps him with backgrounds and bord eye-catching poetic inscription! Tee Paragraph None of these skills come cheap*, but for those Cee yee eae driving, painting the vehicle is an essential. Ie may pas aay. orret j thanks for prosperity, to attract customers, oF to Keep up with al a decorated trucks. Whatever the reasons for having the painstaking work ‘ one, it is expensive. Truck owners frequently spend more on their trucks than their houses, and they will often spend the equivalent of two years’ profits on a basic painting and body job. Recently a trucking magnate lavished over $13,000 on a decoration job which took more than four months to execute. More modestly, Mohammad 35, ‘Ahmed from Murree earns up to 15,000 rupees a month, but his truck is being repainted at a cost of 30,000 rupees. Two years ago he and his brother paid 200,000 rupees for stem-to-stern* bodywork. ‘The money came partly from savings,’ he said. “In addition, family members gave some money and the rest was a loan. It’s all part of business.’ Drivers are convinced that the money is well spent. ‘Ifa driver can’t 40 afford to decorate his truck, customers reckon he’s no good,’ said Javed Basir, who transports propane cylinders. ‘It's practical, too. The taj* helps to protect our loads from the eyes of the police. The police are less likely to stop a well-painted truck,’ he added. Paragraph With their hunting scenes and floral designs, the decorations can be seen as a 45, continuation of the court decoration of the Mughal emperors, with the mirrors and embroidery recalling, for example, the Sheesh Mahal* in the Fort in Lahore. They also embrace East and West, the secular and sacred, the ancient and modern. So film stars, cricket legends, and Pakistani military heroes are alongside scenes from ancient Greek mythology, leopards leaping on gazelles, mountain landscapes, and 0 classical calligraphy*. Some owners deck their trucks like brides: the bonnet painted with henna patterns; brilliant parandas* tied to the side mirrors and bell chains tied to the mudguards to symbolize the tinkling of a bride’s payals*. A fringe of beautifully wrought steel peepul leaves dangles from the chassis of one truck, and huge glaring eyes, as well as black ribbons on the side-view mirrors, protect its 5s driver from the evil eye. On another, the intricately patterned taj carved in cedarwood is adorned with a dazzling reflecting image of the Faysal Mosque. Paragraph ‘Truck art has developed over the decades. It was in the 1940s that trucks first began to deliver long-haul goods, and each company developed its own painted logo so that the mainly illiterate people could recognize them. After Partition in 60 1047, the trucks displayed solidarity with their young nation with, for example, the gn of one company featuring the geographical outlines of the new country. These 1080s became more and more flamboyant as trade became increasingly competitive. Truck decoration initially used the thousands of years old motifs from the camel had oes and ox-carts, but in the 1950s Haji Hussain effected enormous change. He 65 pee eeeriously Painted murals and frescoes in palaces in Gujarat, but when he floral borders * “UTMed his skills to painting horse carriages and trucks with Paragraph7 In the 1960s, Pakistan’s economic boom included a great expansion of the The British-built Bedford truck with its seven-foot panelled sides 70 its indestructibility, which enabled it to haul ive years and more. When Vauxhall stopped er early Nineties, Japanese imports like Hino ee Tei Superiority, drivers are nostalgic Gan ealth increased during the 60s and 70s, a Tuck decoration became more and more elaborate. transport industry. and Nissan supplanted them, about the old Bedfords. As th: and they jostled for business,Unit 2 Customs and Traditions Now in the twenty-first century, truck art has reached some kind of apogee, an explosion of brilliant colour, and executed with great skill and inventiveness Let us hope these traditions will be handed down to subsequent generations of artists, Rachel Redford Glossary Arabesque [arab-esk] = traditional Arab scrollwork, particularly of vines, flowers and leaves Come cheap = colloquial expression for ‘are inexpensive’ Stem-to-stern = @ nautical term meaning all the way from the front to the back of a ship Taj = crown, in Urdu; the large wooden prow jutting out above the driver's cabin Sheesh Mahal = the Hall of Mirrors Calligraphy = artistically written script Parandas = braids made of cotton or silk yarn, ending in golden and/or coloured tassels Payals = ankle bells worn on a chain Expression apogee apogee [ap-o-jee] (noun) comes from the Ancient Greek apo (meaning far away) and gaia (meaning the earth) {tis the point in the sky at which the Sun has the highest altitude, Generally, it is used metaphorically to convey the highest or furthest point, the culmination or the climax of some kind of achievement. For example: The apogee of his musical career was his performance of Vivaldi before an audience of fifteen hundred people in New York (Vivaldi was a famous composer.) Reading for understanding 1. Explain the connection which the writer makes between the camel caravans of the past and modern decoration of trucks. (Paragraph 2) 2. Which point is the writer illustrating when she gives examples of the decorations on trucks from Dera Ghazi Khan and Rawalpindi? (Paragraph 2) 3. Which point is the writer illustrating by giving examples of the specialists’ work in Paragraph 3? 4. Why do truckers spend so much money on decorating their trucks? In your own words, give four reasons, (Paragraph 4) Which examples of truck decoration in Paragraph 5 illustrate the most contrasting motifs? Explain in SO words how truck art developed from the 1940s to the 1970s. Use information from Paragraphs 6 and 7 only. Why are truck drivers ‘nostalgic’ about the old Bedford trucks? (Paragraph 7) Explain how truck art at the present time can be seen as having reached ‘some Kind of apogee’. Use information from anywhere in the text for your answer. OXFORDCustoms and Traditions Vocabulary 1, Give the meanings of the following words in not more than seven of your own, words: a) booming (line 3) b) inscription (line 27) ©) wrought (line 54) 4) intricately (line 56) @) flamboyant (line 63) £) nostalgic (line 74) Use the words a-f in six sentences of your own, 2. A guild (line 21) was an association of craftsmen or merchants formed for their mutual protection and aid in medieval times. In many English towns, the medieval Guildhalls where the Guilds met still exist. @) What does the homophone to gild mean? D) Use some form of the verb to gild in a sentence of your own. © Write down two other words apart from Guild which begin with gu pronounced {gl. 3. A magnate {mag-nate] (Line 34) is a wealthy and influential businessman. The word is derived from the Latin magnus meaning great or large. a) What is a magnet [mag-nat]? b) Use magnate and magnetic in two separate sentences of your own. © Write down two words, apart from magnate, which begin with magn, the ‘meanings of which have something to do with ‘big’. (Magnet is not one of them!) 4. a) Embrace (line 48) means ‘include’ Write a sentence in which you use the verb to embrace with a different meaning from this one. b) Executed (line 78) means carried out, Hite @ sentence in which you use the verb to execute with a different meaning from this one. Vocabulary Extend your word power A kaleidoscope (title and line S) is an optical toy consisting of a tube with an the ceement of mirrors and little pieces of coloured glass or, nowadays, of plastic. As the observer rotates the tube, a constantly changing pattern of colours and reflections is produced. The word comes from the Ancient Greek kalos = beauti idos = =to ea reas tutiful + eidos = form + skopein = t {tis used metaphorically to describe a vibrant i t Pattern of shifting colours, such as those display er ng Painted truck, or more loosely a brillignt array of colours, such asa Gsplay of different coloured dyes. The adjective is kaleidoscopic, : For example: As we walked into the funfu ir, @ kaleidoscope of dazzling colours met us. To fashion (fashions, line 22) means “to make’ in th : ; the Latin facere = to make or do. le sense of ‘to create’, It comes from