This work is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and postcolonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs and oral interviews the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers and the circus industry.