India, May 3 -- Uttarakhand's folk traditions play a major role in conserving its forests amid unbridled development push in the hills

Whoever goes to the mountains goes to his mother, said an ancient sage. And such is the pull of the mountains that for generations, countless souls have walked up and down countless slopes as they searched for the self within.

From tall and forbidding granite walls that are unscalable to isolated hillocks dotting the countryside, each hill and mountain holds stories within. And nowhere are those stories told best than in remote mountain villages, traditionally cutoff from the society at large and under the constant shadow of a landform that, while overtly inert, is as much a part of our planet's life his...