THE FORGOTTEN RAMAYANAS OF WAYANAD

LOOKING AT WAYANAD THROUGH THE LENS OF MYTHOLOGY WILL LET YOU UNRAVEL MANY FOLKLORES AND TRIBAL LEGENDS

- ANAND NEELAKANTAN

THE GREAT INDIAN EPICS ARE so integral to our civilisation that they cut across all the barriers of geography, language, caste or religion.

I was in the final stages of completing my latest book, "Many Ramayanas, Many Lessons," and was revisiting Wayanad, which has many curious lores associated with the Ramayana. This beautiful hill district, originally famous for its pepper, cardamom, ginger, coffee and tea, has recently come into national news for a devastating landslide that claimed many lives. An eager media, hungry for ratings, had dubbed the natural disaster the "Wayanad tragedy," giving the impression that this hill district was washed away to the Arabian Sea in the last rains.

In reality, only two panchayat wards of a remote village, high up in the hills, were affected in a district four times the area of Mumbai city. Such sensationalising adversely affected the livelihoods of many who depend on tourism. Still, as a writer yearning for solitude, I figured this was a good time to revisit some places associated with the Ramayana.

One may wonder what Wayanad has to do with the Ramayana. Isn't it far away from Ayodhya? The beauty of Indian epics is that every community in every part of the country has made it their own. This is not just restricted to the present borders of India but includes the old Indosphere, which stretches from Afghanistan to the Philippines; you will find something related to the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.

There are many tribal and non-tribal communities in Wayanad, and each has its own Ramayanas.