Aishwarya Arumbakkam’s Ka Dingiei series is inspired by the beliefs of an ancient Indian community In the Indian state of Meghalaya – meaning “abode of the clouds” in Sanskrit – a small village sits near the border with Bangladesh. Lama Punji is home to 40 families from the Khasi indigenous ethnic group, whose use of the land and its resources is based on a traditional system of unwritten laws. But since 1998, the north-eastern region’s protected forests have been subject to large-scale destruction because of stone and sand mining. Unfavourable government policies, corporate might and legal loopholes have left the Khasi families powerless to resist the quarrying. Photographer and film-maker Aishwarya Arumbakkam first visited Lama Punji in 2015 and has since been documenting the effect of mining on the village and its people in her ongoing series Ka Dingiei . Rather than taking a documentary approach, Arumbakkam’s lyrical and allegorical style is inspired by an ancient Khasi belief that nature is intrinsically