In The Cow in the Elevator Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful imaginative yet critical reading of modern religious life. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests residents and devotees and her own experience of living in the hightech city of Bangalore Srinivas finds moments where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wondera feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime. Offering a nuanced account of how the ruptures of modernity can be made normal enrapturing and even comical in a city swept up in globalizations tumult Srinivas brings the visceral richness of wonderapparent in creative ritual in and around Hindu templesinto the anthropological gaze. Broaching provocative philosophical themes like desire complicity loss time money technology and the imagination Srinivas pursues an interrogation of wonder and the adventure of writing true to its experience. The Cow in the Elevator rethinks the study of ritual while reshaping our appreciation of wonders transformative potential for scholarship and for life.