Heart Of The Woods

Meghalaya’s rich forests are role-models for community-based conservation efforts.

- Anupam Bordoloi in Shillong

THE forest overwhelms your senses—sight, sound, smell. Colourful, flower-shaped mushrooms burst through the thick undergrowth. Moss and lichen cover every inch of the trees. A wren warbler calls out with its distinctive whistle-cry just before crickets and cicadas resume their cacophony, drowning the soft gurgle of a crystal clear stream as it takes a sharp bend over a bed of rocks. You look up and stare straight at a perfect heart-shape opening in the foliage—it’s a metaphor of the Mawphlang Sacred Grove.