Retro Express | Sandhu And Company: The Accidental Background Star

• From the 1960s through the 1980s, trucks marked Sandhu & Company appeared repeatedly in Hindi films—often in chase scenes, smuggling plots, or highway songs.

• · The trucks belonged to a transport company that supplied vehicles and logistics to film productions.

• · The Sandhu trucks became one of the most recognisable background presences in Hindi cinema—a nostalgic detail that sharp-eyed moviegoers still remember today.

“Hey look! Do you see that?” My father would ask, while we were at the cinema. “See what?” I would reply, impatient, annoyed. I would be too riveted by the screen, too anxious to know if the hero would make it on time to rescue the heroine—and why did he have to take a truck? Wouldn’t a bike be faster?

“See the name on that truck?”

“Ya, it says Sandhu and company. So what? “

“It’s in every movie. If there’s a truck, it’s Sandhu,” he would reply, proud of the trivia in his pocket.

But now that I had this piece of useless information from my father, the undisputed trivia king, I started noticing Sandhu and Company in every movie—whether the villain’s sona arrived in it, or the hero was chasing the villain in it with a sidekick for accompaniment and jokes; sometimes, the heroine was hitching a ride in it, and often, the hero and heroine cavorted in the back of a truck too.

Once you notice it, you cannot unsee it.

In the next few films we watched, I found myself scanning the vehicles more closely. And there it was again, painted in bold letters on the masthead of a lorry rumbling across the screen.

Soon it became a private game between us—spotting the truck before the other did. For a ten-year-old, this raised important questions.

Who exactly was this Sandhu? Why did he seem to own half the trucks in Bollywood? And how had he managed to sneak them into so many films?

At the time, I had no concept of production logistics. It never occurred to me that a transport company might be supplying vehicles to film shoots.

Over time, these trucks became accidental background stars, like they deserved to belong to the junior artist category. Turns out the Sandhu family themselves were also closely connected to the film world’s geography.

They owned several properties in Bombay’s star-studded neighbourhoods like Pali Hill and Juhu—areas that doubled as prime shooting locations. One of their best-known properties was Sandhu Villa, located at the beginning of Pali Hill, opposite the bungalow of the legendary actor Dilip Kumar. The villa was frequently rented for film shoots and large weddings. In its place now stands a tower, reminding us of a bygone era.

The family’s links to cinema extended beyond trucks and locations. A member of the extended family, Shamsher Sandhu, later became a well-known lyricist in Punjabi music and films. Another, Raj Sandhu, briefly attempted a career as a Hindi film hero in the 1990s.

But the true legacy of the family remains those trucks. Years later, the pieces began to fall into place.

Long before product placement became fashionable or film credits meticulously listed every logistical contributor, Sandhu & Company achieved a peculiar kind of fame. Sure, their name did not appear in the opening titles, but there was always a “Thank you” in closing credits. My father and I always stayed back to verify this.

And once you did, you realised something delightful—that hidden within the grand spectacle of Bollywood were these small recurring details, like a secret signature scattered across hundreds of films.

Sure, there were other trucks, but Sandhu and Company had cracked the business of product placement code eons before it became a legitimate practice and managed to display their name prominently in almost every movie their trucks were in.

In the pre-corporate era of Hindi cinema, filmmaking depended heavily on trusted service providers—transporters, caterers, equipment suppliers—who worked behind the scenes but were rarely credited.

Sandhu Transport was one such company. In fact, enthusiasts on vintage cinema forums have joked that “Every Tata truck in films of that era seemed to be called Sandhu & Co.”

The trucks appeared in every possible cinematic situation and were the stage for myriad activities—from kidnapping to romance to smuggling to chasing. Contraband moved through the night in anonymous trucks, the words Sandhu & Company flashing briefly for its 15 seconds, before the police began the chase. Sometimes, the hero commandeered one in a desperate pursuit. Hindi cinema loved its vehicular chases, and trucks were

perfect for them—large, noisy, robust, cinematic and wonderfully dramatic when they skidded across dusty highways.

Their fleet of trucks handled the unglamorous but essential job of moving film equipment, sets, lighting rigs and crew members between studios and outdoor locations. If a production was shooting on the outskirts of Bombay or travelling to another state, trucks were needed to haul everything. And when a director needed a truck for a scene, the easiest solution was to use one that was already part of the convoy!

Sometimes, a truck was the perfect setting for a song, as it went up and down long winding pathways in the hills, as seen in Namkeen (1982). Sometimes, the hero and heroine rode the back of truck, post hitchhiking, and proceeded to entertain the drivers with their musical exchanges, like Sharmila Tagore and Jeetendra singing Kisi raah pe in Mere Humsafar (1970). This was of course not a Sandhu truck, which is why the insignia is prominently missing in the front of the truck, but a Janata Transport is painted obscurely, sideways

And sometimes the truck was the chief antagonist, the plot twist—like when the sozzled truck driver Surjit Singh (Rajesh Khanna) in Dushman (1971) hits a man and his buffalo and then is sentenced to serving the family by the judge (Rehman) and actually takes on the role of the buffalo while ploughing Meena Kumari’s fields (her husband is the one who is killed). Then there are the gritty action dramas of the 1970s, where trucks practically became characters themselves.

The same era’s crime thrillers also relied heavily on transport trucks. In Don (1978) starring Amitabh Bachchan, the underworld’s smuggling operations depend on trucks moving goods through the city and beyond. The same was true in Deewar (1975), Sholay (1975), Amar Akbar Anthony (1977). In 1975, Dharmendra played a truck driver in Pratiggya, set out to avenge the death of his parents. In Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (1974), directed by and starring Manoj Kumar, several scenes unfold on highways and you can always spot a Sandhu truck in the backdrop like a junior artiste.

One reason the Sandhu trucks linger in memory is that they appear in films that almost everyone has seen, and its now-familiar transport insignia is hard to miss. Even in films where trucks are not central to the story, they quietly populate the landscape. Think of the dusty roads and rural highways in Sholay (1975). The film’s famous dacoit territory is full of passing vehicles, supply trucks and transport carriers and in the mis-en-scene, the Sandhu lettering would often flash by for a second or two.

Like my father, these sightings created a strange sense of familiarity for me too, and I am sure for many other viewers. The truck might appear at a different time, serve a different purpose, the driver might change, the scene might shift from romance to crime to comedy—but the name painted on the metal often stayed the same.

Today, of course, Bollywood has product placement deals, branded cars, and end credits that list every catering van and vanity truck. But back then, a transport company achieved cinematic immortality the old-fashioned way—by simply turning up to work every day.