SONG CHALLENGE WINNER!

They Sure Know How To Pitch A Party In Pashan Pud! . . . (August 2001, Uttar Pradesh, India) -- Thousands of Indian villagers have celebrated an annual festival by throwing stones at each other.  Nearly 250 people were injured during the Pashann Pud stone-throwing event near Nainital in Uttar Pradesh. Doctors report mainly head and eye injuries.  Villagers arranged themselves into two groups to throw the stones.  The tradition dates back several hundred years to when one member of the community was sacrificed each year to appease the village's goddess.  The injured were given first aid on the spot and many were transported to hospital.  The victims described their injuries as a "kind of blessing from the goddess", United News Of India reports.  In past times, when a chosen young man's parents appealed to the king to spare his life, villagers were ordered to compensate with their blood.  There are no rules about the size of stones that can be used during the festival.


The Casting of the Stone by derrymacash

derrymacash's Comments:

See, what'll happen is eventually the attention of the law will turn to this tradition and an attempt will be made to ban it (thereby sending it underground).  And an Indian folksinger, who's spent a bit of time in Irish pubs, will pen the following, to the tune of The Wearing Of The Green/The Rising Of The Moon (and to be sung in your mind's ear just as earnestly as the pub bore renders the originals at chucking-out time).


Oh then Ravi dear, and did you hear?
The news is far from good.
The law's concerned, its gaze is turned
And it falls on Pashan Pud.
As I live and breathe, the law's decreed -
It chills me to the bone -
From now on hence it's an offence . . .
The casting of the stone!

The casting of the stone-o
The casting of the stone
From now on hence it's an offence . . .
The casting of the stone!

Year on year from far and near
We see the revellers flock
To throw, to shunt, to fling, to punt
To catapult some rocks.
The bandaged heads, the left-for-dead
The urgent plastercasts,
The dazed, concussed must make a fuss
Or be relics of the past.

Relics of the past-o
Relics of the past
The dazed, concussed must make a fuss
Or be relics of the past

Ah, but Ravi dear the law will hear.
Our screams will rend the sky.
For Pashan Pud is in our blood
We'll never let it die.
Each honest man can join our band
You need not stand alone
And loud and high we'll raise our cry
The casting of the stone.

The casting of the stone-o
The casting of the stone
And loud and high we'll raise our cry
The casting of the stone.

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