‘We live with forest’ and ‘forest live with us’!
Tallest tree of the forest is the symbol of our hope,
The Python is our messenger of past,
Blossoming flower of grassland are our depiction of smile,
Birds are the our fortune teller,
Earthworms are our marker,
Butterflies are our messenger of worship,
We design our life with them,
They are our image of clan and family,
We can’t live without them,
Our aspiration is tuned with their respiration,
We are cheerful with them!
Now, out of the blue, you arrived
and say we are poor!
So, you will build industry for us and give job to us!
But for that,
You occupy our land, our forest, our friends and respiration,
We never thought!
‘You are such a pitiable’
That you can’t build anything without our forest,
But you say, ‘we are poor’!
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Please, go away from our blessed place
Don’t wipe out our friend!
We are rich and happy with the blessing of our friend
There is no need of your industry,
Please go away
Leave us alone we will design our destination.
There is a community called Khasi, inhabitant of State of Meghalaya, India. The Khasi matriarchal society has a cultural system, where they consider forest as sacred. They have clan forest, village forest, community forest in every village. There is a saying that “Khasi live in forest and forest live Khasi”. Their lifestyle is designed with cycle of nature and nature stewardship is vivid in their day to day life. Now, different groups are coming up to the area, started to destroying the forest in the name of mining and industry. Ecosystem people of the area trying hard to raise their voice, but no one care about it. In every visit to the area I am becoming helpless!