In this multi-sited ethnographic study, Knight explores the everyday lives of women of the Baul tradition of musical mystics in India and Bangladesh. She demonstrates that Baul women construct a meaningful life as they navigate between conflicting expectations of Bauls to be carefree and of women to be modest.

In literature and popular imagination, the Bauls of India and Bangladesh are characterized as musical mystics: orange-clad nomads of both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. They wander the countryside and entertain with their passionate singing and unusual behavior, and they are especially well-known for their evocative songs, which challenge the caste system and sectarianism prevalent in South Asia.

The dominant tropes imagined for the Baul tradition of eastern India and Bangladesh are constructed around male models: the wandering mistrel carrying his ektara instrument who engages in esoteric ritual practices. Lisa Knight's sensitive ethnography, however, fills in the significant lacunae of the lives and practices of Baul women. She artfully analyzes the ways in which these women bridge the contradictory expectations of Baul traditions as 'wanderers' and those of the non-Baul communities as respectable, settled Bengali householders. This study will significantly impact the ways in which readers understand Baul traditions, asceticism, boundaries of religious identities, and women's agency and performance in South Asia.