[ping00]

Thanks for sharing! I always love looking at the hand-painted advertisements when I'm back in India. I almost never see it in the cities these days (billboards have taken over), but back in my parents' villages, a lot of older painted advertisements (like Maha Cement) are still there on the walls that run past the main street.

On a side note, I have an HTTP200 license plate and I want to get some nice Indian truck style lettering saying HORN <HTTP200> PLEASE around it :)

[bjackman]

I visited India about 10 years ago and I often saw hand-painted advert murals for global products like Coca-Cola. I thought this was a really cool thing to see! It's nice to hear these things are still visible. I wonder if anyone is still painting them? It would seem surprising, but then it was certainly surprising to me 10 years ago too so I would not bet my life against it.

[kamaal]

>>I wonder if anyone is still painting them?

Yes, its quite thing even today. The banners tend to tear and fly away due to high winds.

So painting is still a thing in pretty much all over India. I even knew a neighbour who would do it. Like he painted our street address on our home. He also did many such things on highways.

Not sure if you know this, most such painters are illiterates and will have a hard time writing anything by hand. So its less of a font painting, more like a art form for them.

Only a while back, even movie posters were painted and quite honestly they would be stunning. I have seen them as a kid and would inspire awe.

On a tangential note, a classmate of mine had a flare for it, and he even did some projects with making huge mega massive stunning artistic displays with paint and thermocol, not sure what he is doing now, but back then those things looked quite impressive.

[zem]

a project that has been on my todo list for years is to crowd source the dividing line between "horn ok please" and "sound ok horn" (I saw the latter for the first time when I lived in Bangalore, but I gathered it was the common version in the south, which implies the existence of a border marking the transition)

[aptwebapps]

So close ... https://cdn.qwenlm.ai/output/wV1bg6891b9b1082439d7000d439747...

[atonse]

HAHA. This joke made my day.

What the heck does "HORN OK PLEASE" mean anyway? I had seen it my whole childhood.

[muststopmyths]

"horn please", to tell people to honk while passing.

OK was originally a separate thing that used to occur in locations other than between the two words. I distinctly recall this from my childhood. Don't know the origins of it but there is some suggestion on the internet that it was copied from Tata trucks which had the logo of the OK soap (a lotus).

They could occur in the current order, but it was not necessary. It should still be read as separate from the "horn please" phrase.

As the country became functionally more illiterate over the years (yes, probably a controversial opinion :) ), the three words were just rote copied inline and painted on trucks, with the meaning lost to time.

[__rito__]

OK means: "On Kerosene".

See: https://trucksfloor.com/en/blog/horn-ok-please-on-indian-tru...

[muststopmyths]

I would love to see a reliable source for this. All I have ever found is people on the internet asserting this to be true, but no actual evidence (in the form of contemporaneous pictures or documents from WW2).

[__rito__]

It is just Horn Please. OK is a historical artefact.

During WW2, due to fuel shortages, Indian trucks often switched to Kerosene.

OK means: "On Kerosene". OK was painted on the back of trucks and other vehicles to warn other drivers to maintain a safe distance because Kerosene is highly flammable.

Due to another meaning of OK, they just kept doing it. [0]

[0]: https://www.fr8.in/blog/why-is-horn-ok-please-written-behind...

[mikestew]

More flammable than gasoline? I’m not buying this one at all.

[detaro]

It says "than diesel" in the link, but I don't think diesel engines would've been common at all at the time. To my knowledge they only became popular post-WW2.

[gopalv]

> What the heck does "HORN OK PLEASE" mean anyway? I had seen it my whole childhood.

I was told that this was the polite honk triplet - the two honk call and one honk response.

"honk honk" / "honk"

"horn ok" / "please"