Whose story is it anyway

Writer Imran Ali Khan is on a mission to weave together the numerous folk renditions Ramayana.

A playful little monkey named Hanuman saunters in the forest, bored and out of things to do. His mother, Anjana, picks him up and narrates to him the story of a glorious king from far away that vanquishes evil. The story is of a king named Ram and the epic saga born out of a mother’s fantasy is what takes form as Ramayana. Now this might sound like the synopsis of what the actual Hindu epic may have been like if the English polymath Lewis Caroll had rendered it. But in reality, this is just one of the thousands of folklores that the tale of ‘Ram’ has given rise to in its history of existence spanning more than two millennia.

Lecturer and writer Imran Ali Khan is on a mission to collate all of them and has been doing just that for the past five years through his project Kiski Kahani - The Ramayana Project. Imran, who is conducting a three-day lecture series in the city as part of Artisans’ Art Gallery’s summer workshops programme this week, aims to bring versions from as far and wide as Uttar Pradesh to Tamil Nadu and make it accessible to people in the city.

He took up the effort after being fascinated by a translation of the Valmiki Ramayana and has so far brought together more than 300 folklores and mainstream renditions of the epic. But the intention, he says, is not to sew them together as a whole, but celebrate their distinctness. “Across the geographical length and breadth of the country, Ramayana takes up distinct forms. But the only thing that bridges them all together is the basic framework of the story.”

On why he took up Ramayana for his project, Imran says, “I was astonished to see how one story could have so many forms. The curious thing was every time I heard a folklore surrounding the Ramayana, people always had a nested narrative or a story that was relevant to the geographical area it is conceived in and that added a flavour to it. It is also interesting to see the different versions that these folklores add to one facet. For example, just the story of Sita’s birth has over 10 different versions. In some, she’s King Janaka’s daughter while in others she is Ravana’s.”

His fascination for the epic started from a 10-day-long course he took on Valmiki’s Ramayana under renowned translator Arshia Sattar. However, the version that is long considered the authoritative one is also just one of the thousands available of the story, says Imran. “Valmiki’s Ramayana is not the basis of Ramayana, it too is a distinct version of it. The hundreds of folklores do not derive from Valmiki’s version but rather from the original story,” he adds. And furthermore it is the folklores, not Valmiki Ramayana that is to be credited for the widespread reach of this epic, argues Imran.

“The Valmiki Ramayana, in its language — Sanskrit — and its complexity could never have appealed to such a large mass of people from across the country. It is the folklores that have to be credited for its reach. They provided people with accessibility to the story without simplifying it a lot and maintaining its essence. I see Ramayana and its hundreds of versions as a way to think about and see where we are in our lives and our world. And its real beauty is how it has still remained so relatable,” Imran further adds.

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