Village Stories

There were a couple of side notes from yesterday I wanted to share.  When we were driving to our village yesterday on a narrow dirt road we shared the road at one point with a funeral procession.  A shrouded body was being carried on a plank to be cremated. At least 100 villagers were following behind on foot.  The elderly women in the front were crying out in grief.  Our eyes were big as saucers as we shared something so intimate and physically close as they walked right next to the car.  Another aside is that when people talk of someone who has passed they reference it by saying he or she has expired.  

My other aside from the village was that the father of the Mayor experienced the partition of India into new states including Pakistan and India in 1947.  He lived in a village in Lahore which is now Pakistan.  His whole village moved in bull carts to this new village in Punjab which had been evacuated by the Muslims living there.  The Muslims all went to Pakistan.  The true stories of the partition and violence that followed are still being analyzed by historians.  Was it a case of extreme nationalism and fear or genocide?  Was it a case of mass movement and inadequate police and military protection that led to looting and violence?  The verdict is apparently still out on this case.