जुन्याली - उत्तराखंड की पहली पहाड़ी संगीतमय गुड़िया

A child growing up in Delhi or Dubai may never see her grandmother walk uphill with a kandi on her back. Junyali was made so she could hold that image in her hands.

Uttarakhand’s first Pahadi musical doll is dressed in traditional Garhwali-Kumaoni-Jaunsari attire, carries a back basket and a head basket, and sings seven folk songs. Three friends created her for the children of the mountain diaspora, so that the language and its melodies travel wherever the family does.

She is a toy the way a folk song is a tune: on the surface, yes. Underneath, a whole homeland in miniature.