We began this book with a question: how do you make a man? Our first answer came by way of assertions from an elite community that their esoteric and exclusivist rituals effect radical transformations by turning low-status boys into hegemonic twice-born elite men. Yet this assertion was immediately undermined: both by the men themselves, who ruefully admit that to be initiated is not enough, that successful and repeated performances of dominant masculinity are needed; and by males from other communities, who manage to claim ‘manhood’ without the practice of initiation and who are moreover oriented towards styles of masculinity quite different from the Brahmin, suggesting that perhaps we should not speak of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ in such a richly plural society.

Yet against this fragmenting tendency, Chapters 3 and 4 highlighted over and over the existence of consensus around the set of characteristics needed if one is to make accomplished performances and stake claims to consistent and successful masculine status. We found that earning and bringing money home, providing dependents and making wise use of the money—as in house-building—have become core preoccupations for men across all communities over the 20th century. Brahminical values of renunciation, austerity and purity are sidelined even among Brahmins in favour of decidedly this—worldly demonstrations of masculine competence. This competence is expected to anticipate or realize one's role as heterosexual householder, with sexuality and providing as its twin poles.