Art & Culture GK Questions with Answers – Page 25

Silambam is the staff art of Tamil Nadu, and the length of bamboo, usually about the height of the practitioner, is what identifies it in any list of weapons.

Kalaripayattu belongs to Kerala, takes its name from the kalari, the arena in which it is taught, and is usually described as among the oldest surviving martial arts in the world.

Mrichchhakatika, the little clay cart, tells the story of the merchant Charudatta and the courtesan Vasantasena and is valued for its picture of ordinary city life rather than of kings.

Tholu Bommalata uses large leather puppets held against a lit screen, and the shadows tell episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata through the night.

Yakshagana is performed through the night in coastal Karnataka on episodes from the epics, with tall headgear, painted faces, a singer who carries the story and drums that mark the dance.

The Natya Shastra describes the playhouse, the actor's gestures, music, dance and the theory of rasa, the sentiment a performance raises in the spectator, and it is the foundation of every classical form of Indian theatre and dance.

Alam Ara carried recorded dialogue and songs and opened in Bombay in 1931; Irani also produced Kisan Kanya in 1937, the first Indian colour film, which is why his name answers two questions in this chapter.

Dadasaheb Phalke made it in 1913 as a silent film on the legend of the truthful king, and it is counted as the first Indian feature film.

In Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat he played the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khalji, whose siege of Chittor in 1303 is the historical background of the story, which is drawn from the Padmavat of Malik Muhammad Jayasi.

She won the Academy Award for costume design in 1983 for Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, sharing it with John Mollo, and was the first Indian to win an Oscar in any category.

The Dadasaheb Phalke Award was instituted in 1969 for lifetime contribution to Indian cinema and is named after Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who made the first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra, in 1913 and is called the father of Indian cinema; the first recipient was the actress Devika Rani.

Ankiya Nat is the one-act devotional play written by Srimanta Sankardeva, the saint of the Vaishnava movement in Assam, and its performance is called a Bhaona, staged in the prayer hall of a satra or naamghar with a narrator, songs and masks.

Dignaga and Nathamuni are matched rightly while Aryadeva is not, so exactly two pairs are correct.

Ajanta and Lepakshi both carry painting on their walls and ceilings, while Sanchi does not, so the first two alone fit.

Neither of these belongs to the six orthodox systems, so this is the pair that stands outside. The six systems, called the Shad Darshanas, are Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta, and all six accept the authority of the Vedas.

The Gandhara school of art grew in the north-west, around Peshawar and Taxila, and reached its height under the Kushana rulers, above all Kanishka, in the first and second centuries.

Pashmina is the very fine wool combed from the undercoat of the Changthangi goat, reared by herders on the cold high plateau of Ladakh, and it was first spun and woven into shawls in the valley of Kashmir.

Under the Act of 1999 a registered geographical indication, and the entry of an authorised user, is valid for ten years and may be renewed for further periods of ten years without limit, so a GI can last for ever if renewal is applied for in time.

Muga is reared on som and soalu trees in the Brahmaputra valley, and its thread has a natural golden sheen that grows brighter with washing; it is used for the mekhela chador and holds a GI in the name of Assam.

Madhubani, also called Mithila painting, comes from the Mithila region of northern Bihar, where women painted the walls and floors of the marriage chamber with natural colours, gods, fish, bamboo and the sun and moon, filling every gap with pattern.