I was laid down by flu for the last one week. On the way to recovery, the free time and boredom made me re-organise my digital photography collection (I attempt it once a year or so).

The problem with any such re-organisation attempt, whether of photographs, old correspondence, old books or some other personal collection you may be having, is that instead of simply getting the work done, you end up revisiting all the associated events and spend hours and days just enjoying the whole thing (except when moving your home – the tight deadlines simply don’t give you the luxury of time).

This time I closely examined a set of few photographs, which were all taken by various mobile phones that I have owned during the course of last nine and a half years. Some of these were special though of very poor quality. Reason, they were all taken from within a moving car. Let me explain.

During the course of these 9-10 years, there were phases when I had to undertake frequent road travel by car. Somewhere along the line, I started reading the ‘quotes’ at the back of the trucks moving in front of me. While most of them happened to be very common clichéd ‘quotes’ such as ‘Jai Mata Di’, ‘Buri Nazar Wale Tera Muh Kala’, ‘Tinku Te Bablu Di Gaddi’ and so on, a good number of them were very interesting. As I am very poor in remembering jokes, quotes, names etc., I started taking photographs of the back of the trucks with my mobile phones. Many of such photographs I lost permanently, as I forgot to download them to my computer. A few of them, however, remain.

Today, I thought, I would reproduce some of these quotes for you. So here they go –

1. Nek Kamai Kar Bande Muft Khana Chhod De, Tyre Bahut Mehanga Hai Gadi Bhagana Chhod De

2. Denda Hai Rab, Sarh De Ne Sab; Pata Nahi Kyon

3. Jinhe Jaldi Thi, Who Chale Gaye

4. Zindagi Maut Ki Amanat Hai

5. Latak Mat, Tapak Jayega

6. Kayde Se Rahoge, To Fayde Mein Rahoge

But the best one, I saw is –

“Kisi Ko Muqqamal Jahan Nahi Milta, Kisi Ko Truck, Kisi Ko Saamaan Nahi Milta”

Translating these quotes to English is not only difficult but will also take away the spice, so to say, and make them insipid. So, I won’t even attempt it.