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 Indias 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.