A Halloween to Remember

The potatoes, lady’s fingers, chillies, tomatoes, and onions always fought among themselves. There was a lot of commotion.

- Inderjeet Kaushik

Not even a day went by when they would not argue or fight with each other and they often got injured. They never gave up on a chance to humiliate one another.

One day, a pumpkin entered their colony. Seeing his huge stature and lively personality, the other vegetables became silent.

“No one’s going to argue ot fight anymore. And if someone does, I’m here to punish them,” announced the pumpkin as soon as he arrived.

“Why should we follow your orders? You are no king! We won’t listen to you! What are you going to do?” asked the chilli, who was not scared of him.

The pumpkin did not like the chilli daring to question him.

He said, Nothing!” And then he just rolled over and carried on, crushing the chilli on his way.

The chilli felt as though a road-roller had gone over him!

“Does anyone have any more questions?” the pumpkin asked after crushing the chilli. No one said a word.

There was discipline now in the vegetable colony; the vegetables stopped arguing and fighting completely.

All was well for a few days, but the pumpkin had become too proud of his strength. At the slightest chance, he would roll over the smaller and weaker vegetables to crush them. The pumpkin then laughed loudly and scared off the other vegetables.

Frustrated by the pumpkin’s bullying, the other vegetables united one day and threw him out of the colony.