Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

Killer Trains, Petrol Looters and Darwin Awards

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‘Train Kills Three at Level Crossing.’ This was a newspaper item some days ago. Semi-literate journalists who have never read a book in their lives and will never amount to anything in life write such headlines. Having got an MA (Journalism) by cramming three worthless pamphlets – and they are indeed worthless and nothing more than rags – their heads are so full of themselves that there is no room for anything else to get into those emptinesses. Least of all any real knowledge.

These pea-brained specimens belong to a race that should by the theory of Natural Selection have gone extinct centuries ago, but Pakistan being a country where only such pieces survive and indeed get to the top of the heap, they have thrived. These morons do not understand that a train travelling at, say, 60 km/h has such huge momentum that if the driver slams on the brakes upon seeing a moron on a motorcycle rickshaw trying to dash across the line, it is impossible to stop the train. It’s the train’s momentum that cannot, simply not, make it stop.

And anyone who has lived in Pakistan with their eyes open will know how stupid ordinary Pakistanis are. I have seen motorcyclists with wife and six children, all on the same bike, struggling across railway lines even as an express train is thundering towards them. It happens all the time. We also know that the mindset in Pakistan is: ‘I will go ahead and execute my stupidity, it’s the other bastard’s function to save my life.’

So many times I have heard it said, ‘O aapay bachavay ga.’ (He’ll save me himself.) I have never been able to figure out if this ‘he’ refers to god or to the other driver. Most likely to both.

As well as that, idiots on motorcycles, in Suzuki loaders doubling as school vans and on rickshaws believe that a speeding train can come to an instantaneous screeching halt as soon as it sees them. Just like the last time the car came to a halt but unfortunately still crushed the brainless motorcyclist’s young son perched on the fuel tank.

So if some retards die as a result of a collision with a train, it is not the fault of the train as newspaper reporters would have us believe. It is surely repeated readings of such newspaper items that relatives and friends of those who kill themselves at unmanned level crossings begin to believe that the deaths were entirely the fault of the locomotive driver and not of the shithead who got himself killed. Unsurprising then that these imbeciles burn tyres on the railway line, hold up rail traffic and generally make themselves a public nuisance.

These blockheads also demand that the unmanned level crossing be manned. This is when I fervently wish all these idiots had been born unmanned! That would have been natural selection at its best for then they would have been incapable of procreation because morons will only breed morons. Fucktards ought to know that not every level crossing can be manned and that there are certain criteria laid down by railway rules to have them either one way or the other.

And then there were looters of petrol from the tanker that overturned near Dera Nawab (Bahawalpur). The swarm of gleeful petrol-soaked looters with their kitchen and bathroom utensils needed just one thickhead to light his cigarette. And he did just that. The resulting conflagration killed some two hundred and fifty retarded morons. Nearly one hundred motorcycles and, I think, five cars were burnt to cinders.

In one video I saw a brand new Suzuki Cultus stop, a man emerge, empty a mineral water bottle and run to fill it with the leaking fuel. Now, this man, dressed in pants and shirt, seemed to be the owner of the car that costs Rs 1.4 million. Getting this car this bastard was obviously living beyond his means for he could not afford to tank up, or even he could not resist the urge to loot what was available. I hope he together with his car was in the conflagration!

And now to the Darwin Awards. To quote one website, this is ‘an award famously given out yearly for the most stupid and unfortunate deaths..’ If you ask me, the deaths that win this award are not unfortunate. They are very auspicious for humankind because by their occurrence, the average IQ of humanity jumps upward.

Aside: on this theme, I may add that back in the days of The Frontier Post, I used to write, besides my travel piece, a weekly humour column. It was vicious for it spared no politician, not even Mirza Aslam Beg. In one I said that if Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif were to die simultaneously the average national IQ of Pakistan would jump upward by several hundred points!

Now, the Darwin Awards are given to those who by dying preclude the chance of creating offspring equally challenged in mind. That’s what Mr Darwin meant by Natural Selection, that is, survival of the fittest. Therefore, if the management of this award is reading their newspapers, they should forthwith forward some two hundred and fifty trophies to Pakistan to the families of those fucktards who died looting petrol. And they should force further bereavement on the bereaved by making them pay for the trophies together with the mailing cost.

Also, the Darwin Awards management need to watch our newspapers so that they read of all the deaths that annually occur at our unmanned level crossings. I can assure them all their awards will end up in Pakistan.

For those of you who champion human rights (unfortunately my wife does; fortunately she never reads a thing I write) and are angered at my lack of sympathy, hear this: I HAVE NO BLOODY SYMPATHY FOR MORONS WHO ROUTINELY DIE ON LEVEL CROSSINGS AND THOSE WHO DIED IN THE PETROL TANKER CONFLAGRATION. Mankind is a lot better off with such specimens dead rather than alive.

As the matchless George Carlin said, ‘When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It’s only painful for others. The same goes for when you are stupid.’ They who recently died in the fire and on the level crossing are among those who deserve the Darwin Award. They were a pain when they were alive and now they are pain for those they have left behind.

On the whole, however, mankind is much better off.

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posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:48,

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My Books

Deosai: Land of the Gaint - New

The Apricot Road to Yarkand


Jhelum: City of the Vitasta

Sea Monsters and the Sun God: Travels in Pakistan

Salt Range and Potohar Plateau

Prisoner on a Bus: Travel Through Pakistan

Between Two Burrs on the Map: Travels in Northern Pakistan

Gujranwala: The Glory That Was

Riders on the Wind

Books at Sang-e-Meel

Books of Days