Shiromani Akali Dal stalwart Parkash Singh Badal, who brought villages from the fringes to the centre stage of Punjab politics, was cremated with full state honours at his ancestral Badal village
While a few broke down, others saluted the leader whom they had accompanied like a shadow for years and had seen his transformation from CM, who would actively work throughout the day, and sometimes into the night, to a nonagenarian who had started requiring wheelchair occasionally.
The late Akali leader would often invoke the revered king to describe his policies, draw parallels. Ironically, his depature finds his party in a crisis, just the way the Lion of Punjab left his empire.