India, May 9 -- Vijay Singanjude, a forest guard in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district, succumbed to severe burns suffered while dousing a forest fire. The story was tucked away in a newspaper dated March 15.

As I whispered a quiet prayer for the departed, my mind wandered to Melghat.

North of Yavatmal, this is the southwestern fork of the mighty Satpuras, where hundreds of ghats (valleys) meet (mel) to give rise to a jagged, beautiful teak forest broken by precipitous ridges and steep escarpments, grasslands and waterfalls, basaltic rivers and rocky outcrops. A land both birthed and forged by ancient fires that once ripped open the earth. Home to Muthwa Deo and other ancient gods of the Korku Adivasis. Where cannons guard timeworn forts n...