Includes bibliographical references (p. [455]-486) and index.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction 1 -- Part I The Family and the Life Course Introduction 7 -- One Straw from a Broom Cannot Sweep: The Ideology and Practice of the Joint Family in Rural North India 11 -- Susan S. Wadley -- Allah Gives Both Boys and Girls 23 -- Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery -- "Out Here in Kathmandu": Youth and the Contradictions of Modernity in Urban Nepal 37 -- Mark Liechty -- The Role of Suffering in Women's Performance of Paxto 48 -- Benedicte Grima -- Love and Aging in Bengali Families 56 -- Sarah Lamb -- Memorializing the Self: The Autobiographical Will and Testa-ment of Narayana Guruviah Chetty, Madras City, 1915 69 -- Mattison Mines -- Part II Genders -- Introduction 81 -- New Light in the House: Schooling Girls in Rural North India 86 -- Ann Grodzins Gold Family and Gender Systems in Transition: A Thirty-Five-Year Perspective 100 -- Susan Seymour -- Offstage with Special Drama Actresses in Tamil Nadu, South India: Roadwork 116 -- Susan Seizer -- Nervous Masculinity: Consumption and the Production of Embodied Gender in Indian Wrestling 132 -- Joseph S. Alter -- Dosti and Tamanna: Male-Male Love, Difference, and Normativity in Hindi Cinema 146 -- Ruth Vanita -- Life on the Margins: A Hijra's Story 159 -- Serena Nanda --Part III Social Distinctions of Caste and Class -- Introduction 167 -- God-Chariots in a Garden of Castes: Hierarchy and Festival in a Hindu City 174 -- Steven M. Parish -- High and Low Castes in Karani 190 -- Viramma, with Josiane Racine and Jean-Luc Racine -- The Erasure of Everyday Life in Colonial Ethnography 199 -- Gloria Goodwin Raheja -- Anjali's Prospects: Class Mobility in Urban India 214 -- Sara Dickey -- Seven Prevalent Misconceptions about India's Caste System 227 --Part IV Practicing Religion -- Introduction 229 -- The Hindu Gods in a South Indian Village 236 -- Diane P. Mines -- The Feast of Love 249 -- McKim Marriott -- The Delusion of Gender and Renunciation in Buddhist Kashmir 261 -- Kim Gutschow -- Presence: Yolmo Spirit-Callings in Nepal 275 -- Robert Desjarlais -- Tunes Rising from the Soul and Other Narcissistic Prayers: Contested Realms in Bangladesh 289 -- Jim Wilce --Part V Nation-Making -- Introduction 303 -- Political Praise in Tamil Newspapers: The Poetry and Iconography of Democratic Power 308 -- J. Bernard Bate -- Outsiders at Home? The South Asian Diaspora in South Asia 326 -- Gautam Ghosh -- Why Do Hindus and Muslims Fight? Children and History in India 337 -- Nita Kumar -- Walking through Violence: "Everyday Life" and Anthropology 357 -- Pradeep Jeganathan -- Interviews with High School Students in Eastern Sri Lanka 366 -- Margaret Trawick --Part VI Globalization, Public Culture, and the South Asian Diaspora -- Introduction 381 -- Cindy at the Taj: Cultural Enclosure and Corporate Potentateship in an Era of Globalization 387 -- William Mazzarella -- A Diaspora Ramayana in Southall 400 -- Paula Richman -- British Sikh Lives, Lived in Translation 412 -- Kathleen Hall -- Placing Lives through Stories: Second-Generation South Asian Americans 425 -- Kirin Narayan -- Unexpected Destinations 440 -- E. Valentine Daniel.