Through the study of rural fairs, the article challenges the picture of the “rural agrarian universal” and highlights the mobile and dynamic flows of life and livelihood that constitute the Deccan region. Beyond the registers of criminality and deprivation, the article illustrates the central role that fairs play in the life of nomadic/pastoral/peripatetic communities and the constituent role these communities play in the occurrences of these fairs in particular and regional landscape at large. It concludes with sets of possibilities that the study of fairs can open up to deepen our engagement with nomadism in its contemporary implications.
