The Forests No One Is Allowed to Take Even a Leaf From

A leaf falls in front of you and you leave it where it lands.

Not a branch. Not a flower. A leaf that has already dropped, that nobody would miss, that is going to rot into the ground anyway.

You leave it. That is the rule, and nobody has ever needed to write it down.

The forests it applies to

Across the Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya there are patches of forest that stand apart from everything around them. They have not been cut for as long as anyone can remember.

They are called law kyntang, sacred groves.

Look at the land around one and the contrast tells the story. Farming spread across these hills; forest went. Whole valleys changed. The groves did not change at all.