The Ramayana is a gift that keeps giving. For an epic that many believe was first composed in 8,78,000 BCE, it continues to grow, evolve and thrive in its multitudinousness. Azeez Tharuvana, who grew up in Tharuvana, in the Wayanad district of Kerala, has lived with these stories since childhood. The forests, hills and temples in this town are repositories of many myths and legends, he says. “[As a child] I remember enjoying the view of Banasura hills from the backyard of my home. Growing up, we heard so many stories about it, which left me  astonished,” he recalls of the lofty mountain—one of the tallest in the Western Ghats—named after a legendary king with thousand arms, who was the son of the great asura king Mahabali. It’s also why he decided to study the folk versions of epic stories in Wayanad, when pursuing a PhD.

The problem was that none of these stories had been documented in written form before. That he was a Muslim researching Hindu mythology made the task doubly challenging. “There were many limitations [when it came] to accessing temples for research purposes,” he tells mid-day in an email interview. But, Tharuvana remained persistent, spending the next four-and-a-half years interacting with local tribes, documenting the oral retellings of the Ramayana. His PhD, Wayanadan Ramayanam, went on to win three awards, including the Ambedkar National Excellency Award in 2014.