This article is response to a review article published in an issue of Contributions to Nepalese Studies (vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 111-130) on the book Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom. The article is a tribute, lengthy reply, and addition to the earlier review. The article attempts to answer "how should one study ethnicity and nationalism?". The author devises several guiding rules: nationalism is not natural, nationalism and ethnicity need to be studied from the bottom up, one should not assume that ethnic activists and ordinary people share the same agenda, researchers should be aware of the fluidity of boundaries, and nationalism and ethnicity should be studied in historical context. (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2006-10-10)