GHENGTI- THE FERMENTED PLANT BEVERAGE OF THE TRIBAL FOLK
IN CHAKRATA HILLS, WESTERN HIMALAYA, INDIA.

The Chakrata region in district Dehradun is a 'scheduled tribe' area(Jaunsar-Bawar) that lies in an altitudinal range of
405m-3069m in the Western Himalaya. Theinhabitants of the area are 'Jaunsari' people, majority of them still rely in
traditionalagriculture. During winters and any gathering of celebration, jaunsaris usually sit in a circleand enjoy local alcoholic beverage known as
'Ghengti' served by the lady of the host family.'Keem is the starter in the form of cakes made up of 16,9,8,2 and 1 roots, whole plants,leaves, bulbil
and fruit respectively of the 36 plant species collected by the Jadayi. Fruit pulpresults in local fermented plant beverage Ghengti.


INTRODUCTION
There are a number of communities in India who reside at hill and adopt many traditional methods for their joy and entertainment. The area of the Jaunsar-Bawar comes in district Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. The people of the area are tribals and locally are known as 'Jaunsaris'.
Juansari people assemble in many traditional occasions like festivals, marriage etc. and enjoy local dishes for the occasion. In addition to this, they consume the local wine popularly known as 'Ghengti' to celebrate happiness, to cope with adverse climatic conditions prevailing in the area.
Ghengti is prepared by a complex process by the use of many different plant parts, but mainly root are used to make local wine. Locally Ghengti is also called 'Soor'.
Jaunsar-Bawar a vast tribal area is one of few remaining citadels of biodiversity in Western Himalaya. The natural resources of the area are under great stress due to ever increasing pressure by the tribals, developmental projects taken up by the local and state administration.

STUDY AREA
This study is a part of taxonomic explorations in Chakrata forests that are integrated parts of Jaunsar-Bawar. The study area is situated The area lies in lesser Himalayan ranges Western Himalayas. The whole terrain is mountainous and is broken by numerous streams and Nalas, presenting a very rugged conguration. The entire area is declared as scheduled tribe and the tribals are locally called Jaunsaris.

METHODOLOGY
Exhaustive plant explorations from all the altitudes and ranges was done. Villagers living in remote areas have little access to urban areas and they rely more on their nature. Alcoholic consumption is common but it is locally prepared by the use of certain plant species . These species were collected with all the details from the area and then identied in DD and BSD and with the help of oras by Babu (1977), Kanjilal (1901) and Gaur (1999), Rana and Rao (2002).

PREPARATION OF GHENGTI:
The authors made the exhaustive collection of plant species. During the collection, we consulted the tribal people to know the method of preparing keem and observed that the people in general were not interested to share their secrets. This method involves the two steps : Interestingly 50% of the total species are annual and 50% are perennial (g.3).

DISTILLATION OF THE GHENGTI-:
The raw material for the Ghengti consists of either fruits rich in sugar such as Pyrus sativus (Pears), Pyrus mallus (apple) or nger millet (Eleusine corocana). About 15 kg of fruit pulp or cooked rice, barley (Hordeum vulgare) and roasted cakes made from our of the nger millet are kept in a big closed air tight container. Now about 3 kg of jaggery and one-fourth of keem is added to it. This air tight vessel(locally called Bhatti) is closed appropriately and allow to warm. This mixture is left for fermentation. After 7-10 days fermentation is complete. This mesh is transferred to a metallic container. This wooden lid of a pitch has a pipe and also contains a metallic pot for cold water (Plate 2:A,B and plate3). Now this pot is put on re, after few hours this is distilled. Ghengti is collected and allow to cold, and cold Ghengti is ready to use.
in marriage etc.
The tribal people assemble and sit in a circle. Then Ghengti is poured in bowls (locally called katora) and then the head lady of the family serve it to all circled people (Plate 4).