Velcheru Narayana Rao is Krishnadevaraya Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. David Shulman is Professor of Indian Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Together they have written A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India (California, 1998) and When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others (California, 1994, with A. K. Ramanujan).