Agricultural songs jungoo and dooah once resonated the forests of Jaunpur and Jaunsar region of the Garhwal district of Uttarakhand. In a pastoral society where people toiled for hours in faraway woodlands, these songs helped them communicate as well as entertain themselves.
This short documentary looks at the song practices and their place within the rural milieu of Garhwal. It travels across the villages of Jaunpur, meeting locals along forest trails, villages and farms. They are people who still remember the old song traditions, even if they do not sing them anymore. Through their recollections we gather an idea of the cultural spirit that drives the jungoo and dooah song lyrics and form.
As various lifestyle changes make these traditions obsolete, the film provides a sense of how technological innovations affect creative expressions as well as community engagement. As people remember, we get a glimpse of a time when creativity—individual and shared—was a product of necessity, and thus woven into daily lives.
