In one of Vikram Seth&rsquo;s early books, From Heaven Lake, he sets off on a journey from China to India via Tibet, mostly by hitch-hiking rides in transport trucks.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16road1.jpg" alt="" />Last stop The scene at the Kolkata fruit and vegetable market is a joyous one, as labourers and off-loaders share a light moment
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16raod-2.jpg" alt="" />Trunch calls Along with the delivery goods, even animals get a lift from one place to the other. Being on the road brings many such candid moments
While not everyone gets a chance to hop into a truck, Horn Please, a book on trucking in India by Divya Jain is your next best bet. Over a period of four years, Jain, who runs Safe Educate, which works for truck drivers across India, brought four international photographers &mdash; Sephi Bergerson, Zackary Canepari from San Francisco, Claude Barutel and Thomas Pickard &mdash; to take a long distance ride around India on a goods carrier truck and showcase the life of drivers.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16road3.jpg" alt="" />More the merrier Men board a truck loaded with salt in the north fringes of Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16road4.jpg" alt="" /> Open air As the night gets cold, truckers light a fire and relax before it is time to hit the road again in the morning
&ldquo;The trucks are somewhat their makeshift homes, and here they sleep, cook, and work. For every 10 trucks in India, there are eight drivers. The truck industry is a tough profession and drivers have to work in hostile conditions.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16raod-5.jpg" alt="" /> This is my home Truck drivers who set out on 36-hours of long journeys at a time, treat their vehicles as their makeshift homes. It is here that they sleep, eat and pray
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/16raod-6.jpg" alt="" /> Art of trucking When a driver buys a truck, this is how the company sells it. The rest of the body is bought at truck-building yards, where the four-wheeler is customised from scratch. Once the colours and panels are selected, in come the pop-art painters who decorate the vehicle as per the owner&rsquo;s whims and fancies. This includes painting famous lines, such as &lsquo;Buri nazar wale tera mooh kala&rsquo;.
&ldquo;Less than two per cent of this industry is organised. The book is an attempt to celebrate Indian trucks and truckers. In Bollywood, too, actors have, time and again, donned a truck drivers&rsquo; role &mdash; be it Sunny Deol in Gaddar or Shah Rukh Khan in Chalte Chalte,&rdquo; says Jain, whose family owns and runs the logistics and supply company, Safe Express.

Horn Please, a coffee-table book on trucking in India, was launched recently. Author Divya Jain and four international photographers hop onto long-distance transporters to capture the adventures&nbsp;

One for the road

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One for the road

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