Saturday, August 04, 2007

Tailgate party

My other car is an elephant
Kathmandu, Nepal

Indian bumpers and car-art used to have the names of the driver's or vehicle owner's favourite god ("Jai Sri Krishna," "Jai Mata Di" and so on). There is still a lot of this colourful devotional folk art on the roads. Car owners sport the name of their favourite deity or saint, the same way drivers in Tennessee emblazon the name of their favourite NASCAR driver.

Nowadays, though, they are just as likely to have the names of the vehicle owners themselves ("Ramesh and Priya").
Signs of the times.

While sitting in traffic for countless hours of my precious life that will never come again, I came up with a few that I thought were more realistic. No, you cannot steal them.

Some of these are in-jokes...but I'm too fed-up to explain them. (Why fed up? Don't ask, just don't ask.)

Since I still haven't figured out how to transfer these graphics to the blog, you can see the cool illustrated versions I created here. I said, NO, you cannot steal them.

1. GANESH IS MY CO-PILOT


2. WILL WORK FOR PRASAD

3. BABA ON BOARD

4. THIS VEHICLE BRAKES FOR COWS,

Bullocks, Elephants, Monkeys,
Goats, Horses, Burros, Sheep, Pigs, Dogs, Cats, Crows,
Chickens, Peacocks & Water Buffalo
...but not pedestrians.


5. JESUS SAVES,
but HANUMAN SEVAS

6. BORN AGAIN HINDU -
and again and again and again...

7. WWRD-
What Would Rama Do?

8. NETAJI LIVES

9. MY OTHER CAR IS A RICKSHAW

-the following available only in South India:
10. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SAMBAR

11. BRAKES ILLAI

...and for our newly opened Afghani branch, maybe London too:
12. NO TAILGATING -
I'm a suicide bomber

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh! I can't believ you don't have any comments for this...your bumper stickers are hilarious!!! My fav: what would Rama do?

This is my first time viewing your blog. I too learned Bharatnatyam...for 3 years. Sadly, I lack your discpline.

I'll be coming back here again.

novfox said...

this cracked us up, me and my brother i.e., what a witty wordsmith you are! all of 'em are super and 2, 5, 6, 9 get my two-thumbs up!!!

Sirensongs said...

I am so glad that people are "getting" them; most of them are take-offs of US stickers. Since I hail from the Bible belt, all the God-Jesus ones are so familiar to me, wouldn't it be great to have an alternative? :-D I

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the compliment. So you remember some Telugu, too...not bad.

Kuchipudi...I took it for a year or so while I was just a little kutti.

Hey, I have a new blog in the pipeline...do you mind if I transplant some articles (with credit to you, and a link back to this page)