He published works on both classical and modern variants of this literature and argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects their due.

Though he wrote widely and in a number of genres, Ramanujan's poems are remembered as enigmatic works of startling originality, sophistication and moving artistry.

His father, Attipat Asuri Krishnaswami, an astrologer and professor of mathematics at Mysore University, was known for his interest in English, Kannada and Sanskrit languages.

[6] Ramanujan worked as a lecturer of English at Quilon and Belgaum; he later taught at The Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda for about eight years.

[citation needed] In 1976, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri,[7] and in 1983, he was given the MacArthur Prize Fellowship[8][6] and appointed the William E. Colvin Professor on the Departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, Linguistics, and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

(1990), he explains cultural ideologies and behavioral manifestations thereof in terms of an Indian psychology he calls "context-sensitive" thinking.

[15] The comments written by A K Ramanujan were found to be derogatory by some Hindus[16] and some of them decided to go to court for removal of the text from the Delhi University curriculum.

ABVP, a nationalist student organisation, opposed its inclusion in the syllabus, saying it hurt the majority Hindu sentiment, who viewed Rama and Sita as incarnations of gods and who were husband and wife.