Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 20

The correct answer is B, Santali. Santali is an Austro-Asiatic language of the Munda group, spoken mainly in Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, and Pandit Raghunath Murmu designed the Ol Chiki script for it so that it need not borrow a script from a neighbouring language. Santali entered the Eighth Schedule through the 92nd Amendment of 2003. Option A is wrong because Bodo, a Tibeto-Burman language of Assam, is written in the Devanagari script. Option C is wrong because Maithili is written in Devanagari today, though its older Tirhuta or Mithilakshar script survives in ritual use. Option D is wrong because Konkani is written in Devanagari, which is its official script in Goa, and also in Kannada, Roman and Malayalam scripts by different communities. Ol Chiki plus Santali is a favourite pairing in language and script matching questions.

The correct answer is D, Assam. 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. Option A is wrong because Bihar's folk theatre traditions are Bidesia and Reshma-Chuharmal, not Ankiya Nat. Option B is wrong because the street theatre of Tamil Nadu is Therukoothu, with Villu Paatu as its ballad form. Option C is wrong because Odisha shares the Jatra tradition with Bengal and has Prahlada Nataka of its own. Questions on folk theatre are almost always of this shape, a form against four states, so learn the pairs rather than the descriptions.

The correct answer is A, Bihar. 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. Option B is wrong because the best known tribal art of Jharkhand is Sohrai and Khovar wall painting, done at harvest and marriage. Option C is wrong because West Bengal is the home of Kalighat painting, Pattachitra scrolls of Medinipur and Kantha embroidery. Option D is wrong because Odisha is known for its own Pattachitra on the theme of Jagannath and for palm leaf engraving. The families of folk painting are asked in matching form, so link Madhubani with Bihar and Warli with Maharashtra.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. 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. Its signature weapon is the urumi, a long flexible sword, and its training runs from body conditioning through wooden weapons and metal weapons to bare hands. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu gives Silambam, fought with a bamboo staff, and Kuttu Varisai, the unarmed art. Option C is wrong; Karnataka is associated with Vajra Mushti, wrestling with a knuckleduster shown at Mysore Dasara. Option D is wrong because Manipur gives Thang-Ta, Sarit Sarak and Cheibi Gad-ga. Candidates sometimes pick Tamil Nadu because the art is southern, so fix Kalaripayattu to Kerala and to the word kalari.

The correct answer is D, Bhanu Athaiya. 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. Option A is wrong because Satyajit Ray received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1992, which came later and was not a competitive award. Option B is wrong because A. R. Rahman won two Academy Awards in 2009 for Slumdog Millionaire, for original score and for the song Jai Ho, again later than 1983. Option C is wrong because Guru Dutt, the director of Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, never received an Academy Award. Resul Pookutty won for sound mixing in the same year as Rahman.

The correct answer is C, Jammu & Kashmir. 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. The craft is traced to the fifteenth century, when Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin is said to have brought weavers from Central Asia; the shawls later reached Europe and gave English the word cashmere. A single Kani or Jamawar shawl can take months on the loom, and Kashmir Pashmina now carries a GI tag. A is wrong because Uttar Pradesh is known for Banarasi silk and chikankari. B is wrong because Punjab is known for phulkari embroidery. D is wrong because Himachal Pradesh weaves Kullu shawls and Kinnauri patterns from sheep wool. Exam tip: Pashmina — Changthangi goat of Ladakh, woven in Kashmir, GI tagged.

The correct answer is C, Manipur. Thang-Ta is the armed component of the Manipuri martial system called Huyen Langlon, where thang means sword and ta means spear, while the unarmed component is called Sarit Sarak. Option A is wrong because Mizoram is associated with Inbuan wrestling, a belt wrestling contest in which kicking is barred and the knee may not be bent, and with Insuknawr or rod push. Option B is wrong; no classical martial art in the standard examination list is fixed to Nagaland. Option D is wrong because Assam gives the traditional ball game Dhopkhel, played in the spring season, not Thang-Ta. Manipur is the densest state in this chapter, since Cheibi Gad-ga, Sagol Kangjei, Yubi Lakpi and Hiyang Tannaba all belong to it as well, so learn them as one group.

The correct answer is B, both statements are true, but B is not the correct explanation of A. Chola temples such as the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, built by Rajaraja I, were far more than places of worship. They held land and villages, employed priests, garland makers, cooks, dancers and musicians, ran schools and craft workshops, and even lent money, so the religious, social and cultural life of the region gathered around them. Chola bronzes were cast by the lost wax method and mostly show deities such as Nataraja, Vishnu and Parvati, while a few portray donors and devotees, including saints and members of the royal family. Both statements are correct facts, but the subject matter of the bronzes does not explain why the temples were social centres; their land, wealth and grants do. So option A is wrong. Option C is wrong because Statement B is true, and option D is wrong because Statement A is true. Exam tip: Brihadisvara temple, Thanjavur, Rajaraja I; Chola bronzes by the lost wax method, Nataraja the most famous.

The correct answer is C, Tamil. Tamil was declared a classical language in 2004, the first language to receive the status, on the strength of its ancient Sangam literature and an independent literary tradition. Option A is wrong because Sanskrit received the status in 2005, a year after Tamil, which makes it the commonest wrong answer here since candidates assume the oldest language must have been recognised first. Option B is wrong because Telugu was recognised in 2008. Option D is wrong because Kannada was recognised in the same year as Telugu, 2008. Malayalam followed in 2013 and Odia in 2014, and in 2024 the status was extended to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali. Keep the classical list separate from the Eighth Schedule list, because Pali and Prakrit are classical languages but are not in the Eighth Schedule.

The correct answer is D, Chhau. Chhau was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. It is a masked dance-drama of eastern India with three styles named after their homes: Seraikella in Jharkhand and Purulia in West Bengal, where masks are worn, and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, where the dancers perform without masks. The form grew out of martial training, so its steps imitate combat and the movements of birds and animals, while its stories come from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and local legend. It is danced at the spring festival of Chaitra Parva to the beat of the dhol and the dhumsa. A is wrong because Fugdi is a women's folk dance of Goa. B is wrong because Jhoomar belongs to Punjab. C is wrong because Dalkhai is a folk dance of western Odisha. Exam tip: Indian entries on the UNESCO list include Chhau (2010), Ramlila, Kutiyattam, Vedic chanting and Sankirtana.

The correct answer is B, Assam. 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. Option A is wrong because West Bengal is associated with Baluchari and Murshidabad silk, which are mulberry silks, not muga. Option C is wrong because Manipur is known for its Longpi black pottery and Moirang Phee textile rather than for muga. Option D is wrong because Meghalaya is known for Eri silk and bamboo craft; Eri, the ahimsa silk, is also produced in Assam but is dull white, not golden. Candidates should remember the Assam trio: muga golden, eri warm and pat white mulberry silk.

The correct answer is B, France. Le Corbusier is counted as a French architect. He was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland in 1887, settled in Paris, took French citizenship in 1930 and worked from France for the rest of his life. Jawaharlal Nehru brought him to India to plan Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, after the first planner Albert Mayer and his architect Matthew Nowicki left the project. Le Corbusier laid the city out in numbered sectors on a grid and designed the Capitol Complex in Sector 1 — the High Court, the Secretariat, the Legislative Assembly and the Open Hand monument — which UNESCO added to its World Heritage list in 2016. Option A is wrong because Germany is the home of the Bauhaus school and Walter Gropius, not of Le Corbusier. Option C is wrong because Italy is linked with Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Palladio. Option D is wrong because Spain is known for Antoni Gaudí of Barcelona. Exam tip: Chandigarh — Le Corbusier; New Delhi — Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.

The correct answer is B, Ranveer Singh. 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. Option A is wrong because Shahid Kapoor played Maharawal Ratan Singh, the ruler of Chittor, in the same film. Option C is wrong because Ranbir Kapoor was not part of the cast. Option D is wrong because Rana Daggubati, known for the Baahubali films, also had no role in it. Questions of this kind pair a film with an actor or with the historical figure behind the character, so the history is worth remembering along with the cast. Padmaavat was released in 2018 after a long dispute over its content, and Deepika Padukone played the queen Padmavati in it.

The correct answer is C, (A) is false, (B) is true. Mathura did stand on major trade routes, but those routes ran from the north-west to the east and from the north to the south, not from north to east and south to west as statement (A) puts it, so (A) is wrong as worded. Statement (B) is sound: Mathura was one of the great centres of early Indian sculpture, and the Mathura school carved in the spotted red sandstone of Sikri, shaping images of the Buddha, of Jain tirthankaras and of Hindu deities. The town on the Yamuna has been a settlement for more than two thousand five hundred years and served as a second capital of the Kushanas under Kanishka. A is wrong because statement (B) is plainly true. B is wrong because it accepts the mistaken direction of the routes. D is wrong for the same reason, since (A) cannot stand as written. Exam tip: Mathura used red sandstone, Gandhara grey schist and Amaravati white marble.

The correct answer is B, Punjab. Gatka is the Punjabi martial art fought with the soti, a wooden stick, and the farri, a shield, and it is displayed at Sikh festivals such as Hola Mohalla. It was one of the indigenous disciplines brought into the Khelo India Youth Games from the 2021 edition. Option A is wrong; Haryana is known in sport for wrestling and boxing academies but not for a distinct traditional martial art in this list. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan is associated with Rajput sword traditions and the khanda as a weapon, yet Gatka is not a Rajasthani art. Option D is wrong; no standard martial art of the examination list is assigned to Jammu and Kashmir. Do not confuse the stick of Gatka with the stick used in Mardani Khel practice in Maharashtra, whose identifying weapon is the patta.

The correct answer is D, Golconda. Golconda Fort near Hyderabad in Telangana was first raised as a mud fort by the Kakatiya rulers of Warangal in the thirteenth century. The Bahmani sultans took it later, and the Qutb Shahi kings rebuilt it in granite in the sixteenth century, adding the long walls, the eight gates and the palaces seen today. The fort is famous for its acoustics: a clap at the Fateh Darwaza can be heard at the pavilion on the hilltop, a signal once used to warn the garrison. The diamond mines around it, such as Kollur, made Golconda a great market for stones like the Koh-i-Noor and the Hope diamond. A is wrong because Panhala in Kolhapur is linked with the Shilaharas and later with Shivaji. B is wrong because Raigad was Shivaji's capital fort in Maharashtra. C is wrong because Neemrana in Rajasthan was a Chauhan fort. Exam tip: Golconda, a Kakatiya mud fort rebuilt by the Qutb Shahis, known for diamonds and acoustics.

The correct answer is C, ten years. 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. Option A is wrong because five years is not a term used for GIs in the Act. Option B is wrong because seven years belongs to no intellectual property term in Indian law and is a pure distractor. Option D is wrong because twenty years is the term of a patent in India under the Patents Act, 1970, counted from the date of filing, and it is not renewable at all. Papers like to place the patent term and the GI term in the same set of options.

The correct answer is B, Raja Harishchandra. 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. Option A is wrong because Alam Ara, made by Ardeshir Irani in 1931, was the first Indian talkie, the first film with recorded sound and songs. Option C is wrong because Kisan Kanya, made in 1937, was the first Indian colour film and was also produced by Ardeshir Irani. Option D is wrong because Mother India, made by Mehboob Khan in 1957, was the first Indian film nominated for the Academy Award in the foreign film category. The four years 1913, 1931, 1937 and 1957 are the ones examiners shuffle. Phalke shot the film in Bombay with an all-male cast, since women of the time would not appear before the camera.

The correct answer is C, Himachal Pradesh. Thoda is the archery based contest of Himachal Pradesh, played around the Baisakhi season, in which two groups called the Pashi and the Saathi shoot blunt wooden arrows aimed below the knee of the opposing players, and dance and drumming accompany the contest. Option A is wrong; Uttarakhand shares the western Himalayan culture but Thoda is fixed to Himachal Pradesh in every standard list. Option B is wrong because Sikkim is associated with archery as a popular sport of Buddhist communities, yet Thoda as a named tradition is not Sikkimese. Option D is wrong because archery in Arunachal Pradesh and the north east generally is not organised as Thoda. The team names Pashi and Saathi are the surest way to identify this question, so learn them along with the state.

The correct answer is B, Ardeshir Irani. 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. Option A is wrong because Dadasaheb Phalke belongs to the silent era and made the first feature film, Raja Harishchandra, in 1913. Option C is wrong because V. Shantaram, the maker of Do Aankhen Barah Haath and Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, worked later and received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Option D is wrong because Mehboob Khan directed Mother India in 1957. Remember that the first talkie and the first colour film share one director. The Imperial Film Company of Bombay, which Irani ran, produced both of these landmark films of Indian cinema.