Illustrations: 15 B/W Illustrations Description: The Wrestler's Body tells us 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. In order to elucidate the somatic structure of the wrestler's identity and ideology, Joseph Alter uses the insights of anthropology to write an ethnography of the wrestler's physique. Young men in North India may choose to join an akhara, or gymnasium, where they subject themselves to a complex program of physical fitness. Under the supervision of a guru they become wrestlers by learning how and what to eat, how, when and where to sleep, bathe, defecate, exercise, brush their teeth, and rest, what to wear, and generally how to comport themselves. By these means they not only become competent athletes, they come to develop a moral physique and to embody an ideology of public health. Alter's first-hand description of each detail of the wrestler's regimen is set within the geomoral context of the gymnasium and is framed by a series of interpretations: the place of the body in the relationship between a guru and his disciple; the meaning of patronage as a system of control and support; the embodiment of symbolic structures in the ritual of Nagapanchami; a deconstruction of the embodied self through the drama of tournament competition; and the development of a moral physique modeled on the ironic form and divine structure of Lord Hanuman's body. Wrestling provides a unique perspective on South Asian culture and society. Self-consciously outside the cultural mainstream, it cuts against the weave of the larger cultural fabric. By bringing members of high and low castes into close physical contact, wrestling challenges the principles of purity and pollution. Concepts of general health and fitness are redefined in exaggerated terms. Using the model of sannyasa, or Hindu world renunciation, wrestlers transform the disciplinary mechanisms of asceticism into the terms of somatic nationalism and utopian reform. The body of the wrestler is a focal symbol in the rubric of ethical nationalism. Wrestlers feel that a reform of Indian national character is imperative and that moral reform on this scale can only be achieved through a discipline of the individual body. As such, wrestlers 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 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 thoroughly revised & updated 3rd edition of the book "RBI Assistants Exam Guide for Preliminary & Main Exam" covers: 1. Comprehensive Sections on: General Awareness, Numerical Ability, Reasoning, Computer Knowledge and English Language. 2. Each section is divided into chapters and each chapter contains detailed theory along with solved examples and shortcuts to solve problems. 3. The book provides thoroughly updated General Awareness section with Current Affairs till date. 4. Exhaustive question bank at the end of each chapter in the form of Exercise. Solutions to the Exercise have been provided at the end of each chapter. 5. Questions from past RBI Exams have been incorporated in the book. 6. Solved papers of previous RBI Assistants Exam have been provided.

The thoroughly revised & updated 3rd edition of the book "RBI Assistants Exam Guide for Preliminary & Main Exam" covers: 1. Comprehensive Sections on: General Awareness, Numerical Ability, Reasoning, Computer Knowledge and English Language. 2. Each section is divided into chapters and each chapter contains detailed theory along with solved examples and shortcuts to solve problems. 3. The book provides thoroughly updated General Awareness section with Current Affairs till date. 4. Exhaustive question bank at the end of each chapter in the form of Exercise. Solutions to the Exercise have been provided at the end of each chapter. 5. Questions from past RBI Exams have been incorporated in the book. 6. Solved papers of previous RBI Assistants Exam have been provided.

This book presents a series of ontological investigations into an adequate theory of embodiment for the social sciences. Informed by a new realist philosophy of causal powers, it seeks to articulate a concept of dynamic embodiment, one that positions human body movement, and not just ‘the body’ at the heart of theories of social action. It draws together several lines of thinking in contemporary social science: about the human body and its movements; adequate meta-theoretical explanations of agency and causality in human action; relations between moving and talking; skill and the formation of knowledge; metaphor, perception and the senses; movement literacy; the constitution of space and place, and narrative performance. This is an ontological inquiry that is richly grounded in, and supported by anthropological ethnographic evidence. Using the work of Rom Harré, Roy Bhaskar, Charles Varela and Drid Williams this book applies causal powers theory to a revised ontology of personhood, and discusses why the adequate location of human agency is crucial for the social sciences. The breakthrough lies in fact that new realism affords us an account of embodied human agency as a generative causal power that is grounded in our corporeal materiality, thereby connecting natural/physical and cultural worlds. Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory is compelling reading for students and academics of the social sciences, especially anthropologists and sociologists of ‘the body’, and those interested in new developments in critical realism.