Piyar Zindagi Hai: Motorcade spreads some love in the city

Artist plans one-night city tour with vehicles bearing ‘chamak patti’ stickers.

KARACHI:

It doesn’t matter if you’re driving a rickety rickshaw or a brand new Mercedes - you can slap on a bright orange sticker that explains to you that ‘piyar zindagi hai’ (love is life) and be part of a larger picture.

Buses in Karachi are best known as noisy, over-crowded traffic hazards on wheels, ideal to pick up on city gossip or to lose your wallet. But for Mick Douglas and his team, these scary, speeding vehicles are inspiration.

In 2006, Douglas and his team made a short film on the W-11 route bus. In 2011, he has teamed up with the staff and students of Karachi University’s visual studies department, and is back for more.

The ‘Piyar Zindagi Hai - Karachi’ project kicked off on Sunday evening at the Mazaar-e-Quaid. According to a press release, this art project, involving the people of Karachi, aims to explore “living and moving in the city at a time of unpredictable violence and social anxiety”.

Douglas is an artist and senior lecturer at the School of Architecture and Design at the RMIT University, Melbourne. His work explores modes of transport as mediums of art practice. He says he has developed a “relationship over the years” with the humble artists who dedicate their lives to decorating buses and trucks. This is his fourth visit to Karachi, and he cannot wait to get the show rolling - even if he was loath to promote it.

“There is nothing (I can say to make people attend),” he told The Express Tribune over the telephone. “It is in the experience itself. I can just say that if you would like to share in the experience of placing the stickers in ways that reveal what is so unique about living in Karachi, you should show up.”

He was referring to the ‘Chamak patti’ stickers, that read “Piyar Zindagi Hai”. The stickers were distributed at various locations for motorists to place on their vehicles.

Anyone and everyone was invited to join in the one-night city tour that navigated through the city, led by a decorated truck and two mini-buses. Seats on the vehicles were available on first come first basis. The procession on wheels paused in four public locations, where the participants were photographed to record where and how they chose to place the stickers on their vehicles. The places included Mazaar-e-Quaid, Kharadar, Sea View and Hussainabad.

Sea View climbs on board

Two buses and a truck rolled into Sea View packed with college and high school students. With pink bandannas wrapped around their heads, volunteers leapt off the bus and began snapping pictures. A large crowd, mostly men accumulated in front of the television screens that had been set up on the trucks. The screens featured volunteers dancing in the bus.

Fifteen minutes later, the volunteers and ‘conductors’ jumped back on and set off to their next destination, leaving a crowd of dancing pedestrians in their wake.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th,  2011.