It's the month of Karkataka on the Malayalam calendar and the hum of recitation from the Ramayana is emanating from most Hindu homes. But the notes wafting out of T.H. Kunhiraman Nambiar's house in this small north Kerala town are not like any other. He has given this month-long ritual to ward off bad luck a 'communal' twist by opting to recite the unique Maapila Ramayanam, or the Muslim version of the great Indian epic. His son has decided to help him spread the message of communal harmony. P. Pavithran, a lecturer in the Sanskrit University at Kaladi, the birthplace of Adi Sankaracharya, has announced his family's resolve to get this unique version of the Ramayana published. The Maapila Ramayanam is a beautiful tribute to the king of Ayodhya and the epic's author Valmiki put together by an anonymous Muslim balladeer. Nambiar, 80, an expert on Kerala's oral literary tradition, is not new to it. He had heard it first when he was 15 from a Muslim balladeer, Piranthan Hassankutty, who was derided as mad for his seemingly endless gusto for singing folk tunes. The retired schoolmaster learnt it by rote and put it down in his notes, but could not publish it because it was incomplete. It had only four chapters, recounting King Dasarath's melancholy as he was childless and the subsequent birth of his four sons, Soorpanakha's attempt to seduce Ram, Hanuman's destruction of Lanka and the Ram-Ravana war. It begins with a reference to Valmiki and how the 'bearded saint' spread Ram's story. Nambiar, who believes the version was composed by someone with an exhaustive knowledge of the epic and its various versions, decided to complete the Maapila Ramayanam. He travelled extensively in north Kerala, visiting even remote villages, to interact with Muslim folk singers and experts on the region's folk and oral traditions. But he met with little success and could not add to the four chapters. He had almost given up on his mission to publish the version, but recent events, particularly the Gujarat carnage, steeled his will. He was convinced that the homage to Ram and Valmiki in Maapila Pattu - folk songs in the local Muslim dialect of north Kerala - had to be reached to more people even though it was incomplete. 'Father wishes to make it known to all rabid communalists that our society's tradition is that of caring and sharing,' Pavithran said. The Maapila Ramayanam would show how the Hindu and Muslim leadership respected each other and co-existed peacefully in the past, Nambiar stressed. He remembers Maapila performers like Hassankutty regularly used to sing this Ramayana before a Hindu audience, and they were widely accepted. Hassankutty was a regular presence at poet Kadathanattu Madhaviyamma's house and several other significant Hindu households. 'Neither Muslims nor Hindus considered it a sacrilege to listen to this. Nor did it evoke communal tension, as any simple thing does now. I am trying to bring back those old days,' Nambiar said. He hopes that the book his son is striving to bring out would become as popular as the oral version was in the late '20s and early '30s. With his famed recitation skills and phenomenal memory, Nambiar has already helped the Kerala Sahitya Academy and the state government resuscitate three Malayalam oral epics - Poomathai Ponnamma, Mathileri Kanni and Kunhi Thalu - and publish them in book form. He also knows 12 versions of the Ramayana by heart.