Murmurs of the Jungle

A boy recites a story told to him by his grandmother about the origins of their remote indigenous village in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. As the mysterious morning slowly unfolds, spirits wander in the forest, and dark secrets buried in time slowly emerge. The trees whisper tales of the Gods and the ancestors. They say that you don't die. Your spirit assimilates into the jungle. And while civilization, its beliefs, and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth continue, the forest stands eternal. A bridge between the old and the new.

Indigenous population Mahadev Koli inhabits the remote villages on Western ghats of Maharashtra. This mountainous region with dense forests is rich with its flora and fauna. Origins of this tribe go back thousands of years and so does their beliefs about the forest and gods. Ancestral stories that are passed vocally from one generation to another slowly become mythologies. But what connection does their present hold with the ancient past? My keen interest in mythology and its transcendence in our modern lives compelled me to investigate this connection. Their symbiotic existence with forests and spiritual connection with the environment deeply intrigued me. But what does forest mean to them? Is it a separate entity from their existence? Can they be the same? The ancient Indian philosophy about the observer and the observation plays an important role here. Can matter exist without a mind? If the Forest is observed, can it exist without the observer?