That title is awful. I know. It’s the best I had.
Sometimes the perfect selfie is the one you don’t take. The one with you and the speeding train that’s headed right for you, for instance.
The 21-second-long video was shared thousands of times on Facebook on Wednesday. In it, Mr Siva is seen standing in the foreground as an MMTS train approaches.
There is an audible warning from a person nearby and a repeated horn blaring from the train. Mr Siva does not move and continues filming, saying “one minute”.
The train strikes him on the right side of his head and body and the phone falls to the ground.
Taking a video while standing in front of a fast-approaching train is a deadly trend in India.
In October 2017 three teenagers were run over by a train while trying to take a selfie in Karnataka state, and two teenagers were killed while taking selfies on railway tracks in Delhi.
Why is this a trend? According to the BBC, experts they spoke to say that in India, posing next to or on train tracks with a best friend is considered romantic and a sign of everlasting friendship. Maybe our western tendency to spend several house payments on shiny rocks so that people know we love them isn’t quite as silly as I’ve always thought.
As for Siva, he survived but suffered head injuries (are we sure those weren’t preexisting joke goes here). He was convicted of trespassing and fined 500 rupees, which works out to around 9 bucks Canadian. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but given the state of things there’s a good chance he’ll feel it. Whether he’ll feel it more or less than he felt the train is the big question.
OH LONG JOHNSON!!!!
We don’t know if he was Faith Hilling at the time.