In this first ever book on Pt Mohanrao Kallianpurkar, one of the pioneers of Kathak dance as we know it today and the first non-gharanedaar practitioner of Kathak to be recognised nationally, the story told spans colonial and post-colonial India. He is a paviour of Kathak in the true sense. Having mastered the repertoire of two of its most important gharanas – the Jaipur and Lucknow Gharanas – from gharanedaar masters, Mohanrao introduced to the form a gravitas, a syllabus and an institutional pedagogy that imbricated the old ways with the new. While gharanedaar artists remain living archives of the oral histories of the gharanas, a non-gharanedaar gets lost, even in memories. By chronicling his life and contributions to the script of a national cultural aesthetic, when an ancient civilisation metamorphosed into a modern India, this book attempts to create a reference point in India’s dance history. Writing on dance is a narrow field and capturing the struggle and determination of a paviour like him is an example of offering a just and fair view of its history. This book is also the first in the history of Kathak to have a cloud section where rare digital material is available on the life and work of Pt Mohanrao Kallianpurkar.