RAWALPINDI: Trucks thunder along Pakistan’s dusty highways and through bustling city streets, like rolling canvases ablaze with color and poetry, transforming heavy transport into mobile masterpieces and offering a window into the country’s folk culture.
The roots of Pakistani truck art go back to British colonial rule, when owners began adorning their vehicles with intricate floral patterns, calligraphy, and cultural motifs.

What started as modest embellishments has evolved into artistry. Painters, welders, electricians, and metalworkers collaborate to elevate commercial trucks into personalized symbols of pride and regional identity.
There are camel bone inlays in Balochistan, intricate wood carvings in Peshawar, and disco-inspired detail in Rawalpindi.
Muhammad Ashfaq, a 55-year-old from Rawalpindi, has been painting trucks for over four decades.

“Each client comes with their own vision and budget,” said Ashfaq. “We ask which style they prefer: Peshawar, Hazara, Swat, Pindi, Mandi Bahauddin, or Karachi.”
Pindi style is considered the most flamboyant, characterized by vivid colors, elaborate stickers, mirror work, and dense layering of design elements.
“Pindi style is like a bride getting ready for her wedding,” says Farrukh Sana, a truck driver who recently upgraded his vehicle with the vibrant design. “We feel happy when people admire our truck. It’s a symbol of hard work and beauty.”

Styles vary according to cost and components, as well as color and complexity.
A full refurbishment of a truck can cost between 2 to 5 million rupees (about $7,000 to $17,790), depending on the materials used and if major elements like the tires and the chassis are replaced.

But, beyond mere decoration, the trucks also bear poetry, religious messages, and personal slogans, reflecting the aspirations, humor, and emotions of their drivers.
Truck art has transcended cargo vehicles, finding its way onto rickshaws, buses, and even household decor.

It first caught global attention in the 1970s, when foreign tourists started photographing the unusually bright vehicles. Since then, truck art has inspired international exhibitions and influenced contemporary fashion and product design.
The distinctly South Asian tradition endures despite Pakistan’s economic hardships. Artisans like Ashfaq remain devoted to the craft, while drivers like Sana view their trucks as more than a livelihood. They are seen as roving cultural ambassadors.

“Every driver dreams of making his truck look unique,” Sana says with pride. “When we drive it out and people turn their heads, we know we’ve created something special.”

DUBAI: In the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie “Thunderbolts*,” directed by Jake Schreier, the focus isn’t just on larger-than-life action; it’s on the messy, complicated relationships between a team of misfits learning to trust each other. 

For stars David Harbour and Florence Pugh, that emotional core was the most important part of the process.  

“For me, most of the preparation was about really fleshing out these character arcs,” Harbour, who plays Soviet super soldier Red Guardian, told Arab News. “This movie sinks or swims not on its IP, but on its really complex relationships between these characters that you don’t know that much about. Our job was to infuse it with a lot of heart, humor, life and soul.” 

Pugh — who made her MCU debut in 2021’s “Black Widow” as the trained assassin Yelena Belova and is now headlining her first MCU movie — echoed that sentiment. 

“There was so much heart and pain already there,” she said. “When you’re playing large characters, you have to find ways to make it feel authentic, especially when you’re dealing with accents or heavy dialogue. A lot of our rehearsal process was about finding cleaner ways to get to the point — rewriting a few lines, making sure the characters said exactly what they needed to say to one another.” 

The cast spent two weeks in rehearsals, crafting scenes that highlighted the tangled emotions between their characters. “It was great fun, especially when you have a director who really wants you to be fully involved and make it your own,” Pugh said. 

The film follows a motley crew of anti-heroes — Yelena, Red Guardian, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Robert “Bob” Reynolds (Lewis Pullman), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) — who must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts as they take down a common enemy. 

Beyond individual dynamics, the movie taps into deeper themes of isolation and the need for connection — what Harbour describes as the “epidemic of loneliness” in the modern world. 

“When these characters first come together, there’s a lot of lying about how they’re doing, a lot of pretending,” Harbour said. “People are afraid. They’re isolated. We feel connected because of these devices we carry, but they don’t really provide the sustenance we need as human beings.” 

Pugh elaborated on that point. “We’ve reached a point where so many people have so many insecurities, and they feel like they’re not right, and they feel like they’re not getting it right, and (what they see on social media) is making them feel like their life isn’t as beautiful or as colorful or as perfect as those posts,” she said. “And I think when we watch characters that have these immense flaws also trying to figure it out, it helps. Of course it helps.” 

Harbour believes the film captures the essence of personal salvation: finding strength in community.  

“I worry about that phrase ‘We have to save ourselves,’ because I actually think it’s that we have to save each other,” he said. “We have to not sit there alone going, like, ‘I gotta do something.’ I feel like that’s the anxiety that’s killing us. The vulnerability of, like, ‘Maybe I ask someone,’ or ‘I find a group of people who are willing to take me as I am and to see the good in me.’ That’s one of the most beautiful moments in this movie.” 

Schreier, director of the acclaimed 2023 comedy-drama series “Beef,” said Marvel president Kevin Fiege encouraged him to take a different approach to this particular superhero story. 

“One of the real lessons of ‘Beef’ was that stories about something that feels smaller, or about emptiness, are no longer niche. They are actually universal. I think everyone goes through some version of that at some point in their lives, maybe to different degrees. But it isn’t small to tell a story like that. And so, this was a chance — on the biggest level — to see if a story like that could resonate at scale. That felt like a really wonderful opportunity.”