When I read this story about farmers carrying firearms to protect their pumpkin farms from pumpkin stealers during haloween, it reminded me so much of my village in Pondicherry. We have sugarcane fields (still continue to ) and during the Pongal (sankrati ) time in mid january, we have to field our workers, most armed with sticks, to dissuade people from entering our fields and stealing sugarcanes. As a goodwill measure, we do give away sugarcanes to those who come and request us directly but are pretty strict with those who try to sneak in.