'When I'm on the mat, I am so filled with this awareness that the slightest touch feels like electricity to my body, and my body reacts to that the same way it would have reacted if I touched a livewire.' Wrestling, kushti, rules the farmlands, as it has for centuries. It had pride of place in the courts of Chalukya kings and Mughal emperors. It was embraced by Hinduism and its epics, and has led its own untroubled revolution against the caste system. The British loved it when they first came to India, then rejected it during the freedom struggle. No, wrestling has never been marginal -- even if it is largely ignored in modern-day narratives of sport and culture. From the Great Gama to Sushil Kumar -- whose two Olympic medals yanked the kushti out of rural obscurity and on to TV screens -- and the many, many pehalwans in between, Enter the Dangal goes behind the scenes to the akharas that quietly defy urbanization. It travels to villages and small towns to meet the intrepid women who fight their way into this 'manly' sport. Beyond the indifferent wrestling associations and an impervious media is an old, old sport.Enter the dangal, and you may never leave.

The Wrestler's Body tells the story of a way of life organized in terms of physical self-development. While Indian wrestlers are competitive athletes, they are also moral reformers whose conception of self and society is fundamentally somatic. Using the insights of anthropology, Joseph Alter writes an ethnography of the wrestler's physique that elucidates the somatic structure of the wrestler's identity and ideology. Young men in North India may choose to join an akhara, or gymnasium, where they subject themselves to a complex program of physical and moral fitness. Alter's first-hand description of each detail of the wrestler's regimen offers a unique perspective on South Asian culture and society. Wrestlers feel that moral reform of Indian national character is essential and advocate their way of life as an ideology of national health. Everyone is called on to become a wrestler and build collective strength through self-discipline.

The nautanki performances of northern India entertain their audiences with often ribald and profane stories. Rooted in the peasant society of pre-modern India, this theater vibrates with lively dancing, pulsating drumbeats, and full-throated singing. In Grounds for Play, Kathryn Hansen draws on field research to describe the different elements of nautanki performance: music, dance, poetry, popular story lines, and written texts. She traces the social history of the form and explores the play of meanings within nautanki narratives, focusing on the ways important social issues such as political authority, community identity, and gender differences are represented in these narratives. Unlike other styles of Indian theater, the nautanki does not draw on the pan-Indian religious epics such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata for its subjects. Indeed, their storylines tend to center on the vicissitudes of stranded heroines in the throes of melodramatic romance. Whereas nautanki performers were once much in demand, live performances now are rare and nautanki increasingly reaches its audiences through electronic media—records, cassettes, films, television. In spite of this change, the theater form still functions as an effective conduit in the cultural flow that connects urban centers and the hinterland in an ongoing process of exchange.

"What fun things can you do with paper besides origami, you wonder? Lots!...make helicopters, bridges, telephones, spinners, and many other toys....demonstrate density, properties of sound, Bernoulli's principle, gravity, etc....your children can learn tons of science by doing these quick and easy activities. You can just stand around, admire, and be amazed."--Parent Council(r). Selected as Outstanding by Parent Council(r).