A grumpy man sat under a walnut tree, staring up at the tiny nuts growing on the enormous tree. Then he glanced over to his garden where he saw enormous pumpkins growing on a scrawny vine.
"How foolish God is!" he exclaimed. "The pumpkins obviously belong on the tree and the walnuts on the ground. I'd arrange things differently if I were in charge!"
Then, without warning, a walnut fell down on the man's head.
"Dear God!" he exclaimed. "If that had been a pumpkin, it might have killed me. God really does know best how everything should be arranged!"
Inspired by: "A Malcontent Cured" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan, 1991.
Notes: You can read about the state of Kashmir in northern India at Wikipedia. This story is also well known in the Middle East, and thanks to La Fontaine, it has also become part of the fable tradition in Europe as well.
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