Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

Fools that Rule

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Every day one reads something in the papers and cannot but wonder what sort of fools and retards rule the various government agencies that mismanage this blighted land. Today (21 May 2016) I am told, ‘The Lahore Ring Road Authority [LRRA] has made a plan to fix iron fencing at various sections of the road to stop pedestrians from crossing the road and causing accidents.’ (Dawn, Metro section).

A small bit of steel fence removed from right in front of a narrow street to give free passage
We are further informed by the blockheads of LRRA that this effort will ‘force’ pedestrians to use overhead bridges meant for them to cross the road. What country do these idiot shitheads live in?

This reminds me of many years ago when another moron by the name of Arif Khan was Director General Lahore Development Authority. I took my complaint of how everyone and my neighbour’s mongrel were naming roads and intersections after themselves. A case in point was Akbar Chowk named after an ordinary property dealer.

You should have seen Arif Khan posturing! The man went livid as if he had never heard of Akbar Chowk which, at that point, was, incidentally, many years so named. ‘What? How can he do it? How can anyone at all name roads or anything else after themselves?’ raged the man.

It seemed this idiot had never looked out of his car window as he was ferried from his royal residence to work and back by a crass driver utterly ignorant of road sense or courtesy.

Khan rang the bell and summoned a minion who only added to the agitation rampaging around the room by pretending to be equally, if not more, outraged by this unlawful activity. Together the two fools raved and ranted for my benefit before Khan ordered an immediate moratorium on citizens naming public places after themselves. The idiot thought I believed a tad of the theatre I had just witnessed.

But this was an aside to show how our official monkeys live in sheltered shells utterly unmindful of what goes on in the ordinary world. At least that is what they like to pretend. And now back to the arseholes who think they can put up iron fences to ‘force’ pedestrians to use overhead bridges. Have the morons of LRRA never noticed that no one, absolutely no one, ever uses an overhead bridge? The one on the Mall near Regal Cinema can be seen as it is ignored by the idiots jaywalking across the busy road. How blind can a government salary render these babus!

Obviously much like thespian Arif Khan, these blind duffers have also not noticed anything as they are driven about the city. These visually impaired dunderheads should have known by now that any old body can up and with a simple hacksaw to cut and remove any length of iron fencing put up anywhere in Punjab. Such operations can take several hours to complete, depending on the length of railing to be removed, but it is executed in broad daylight in front of thousands of people without anyone bothering to stop the vandalism.

It has occurred on Ferozpur Road within sight of Ichhra Police Station. (But that was before the Metro bus changed the situation.) It has occurred in every spot where an overhead bridge exists, especially on N-5 both north and south of Lahore. It has been perpetrated also in places where the railing was meant to prevent free access to a road. Ordinary people know that the State of Pakistan is as dead, impotent and fossilised as Homo Erectus and that they, the common folk, can just do as they please. They do not care if what they are destroying is meant for their use and safety. They only want the shortcut to everything. And if they can make money by any unlawful activity, all the better.

So, as they who live by the Ring Road watch the new steel fencing being erected near their homes, must be rubbing their hands and licking their lips with glee. I am certain the biggest crooks among them will have already apportioned parts of the proposed fence to themselves and their bootlickers. It will have large gaps within days of erection. And the blockheads of LRRA and the Government of Punjab can go suck.

But to be charitable, these schemes really are the government’s programme to keep steel foundries (Ittefaq?) working overtime. On the one hand, the foundry makes money hawking its product and on the other the thugs do too who steal the steel and very likely return it to the foundry for some small consideration.

As much as three metres of railing cut and removed. Surely this operation would have taken more than a few minutes and must have been seen by hundreds of private individuals and perhaps even by passing police mobile vans
Since we are on the subject, ever noticed also how solid concrete road dividers are smashed to make shortcuts for motorcyclists? A police officer friend was telling me recently of the high number accidents resulting in death of motorcycle riders cutting across dividers and being hit by cars at high speed. They die like cockroaches, their brains (if they ever have any) spattered like the cockroach’s fat on the road, yet motorcyclists will not stop from damaging dividers to endanger their lives.

This operation too takes not just a few seconds, but hours in the doing. Oh, I forgot that the State of Pakistan is as dead as the dodo.

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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,

8 Comments:

At 24 May 2016 at 10:03, Anonymous S A J Shirazi said...

Title says it all. Very apt.

 
At 24 May 2016 at 11:11, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amazing.... How the maestro vented... Super stuff... Must have been on fire...

 
At 24 May 2016 at 12:46, Anonymous Anonymous said...

u can't beat them join them. for starters rename your street "odysseus avenue" !!!!

 
At 24 May 2016 at 12:57, Anonymous Salman Rashid said...

SAJ and Rehan, thank you. Burns me up to hear things from officialdom that make it clear that the fools are completely blind and dead to the real world. And Anonymous, thank you too. But I do not name anything after myself.

 
At 25 May 2016 at 00:53, Blogger Arslankataya said...

Salman, I am pleased that we Karachites are not the only ones suffering. Lahourites are in similar boat. 😉

 
At 25 May 2016 at 13:01, Anonymous Salman Rashid said...

Arslan, we are the same people with the same rotten leadership. We all suffer alike. Even across the border in India.

 
At 25 May 2016 at 17:13, Blogger Arslankataya said...

Salman;
I hope you recognize me. I am Jawed AHMED from Siemens days.

 
At 25 May 2016 at 17:30, Anonymous Salman Rashid said...

No. How could have I. I do not have supernatural powers.
I've lost your phone number because of SIM problems. Please do send.

 

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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