Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 31

The correct answer is A, Odissi. Kelucharan Mohapatra was the guru who, with Pankaj Charan Das and others, reconstructed Odissi in the twentieth century from temple sculpture and the surviving traditions of Odisha, and he trained a generation of dancers including Sanjukta Panigrahi. Option B is wrong because Kathakali, the story-play of Kerala, is associated with Guru Kunchu Kurup and with the gurus of Kerala Kalamandalam. Option C is wrong because Kuchipudi is associated with Siddhendra Yogi in tradition and with Vempati Chinna Satyam in modern times. Option D is wrong because Bharatanatyam belongs to Tamil Nadu and to Rukmini Devi Arundale and Balasaraswati. Odissi and Odisha share the first syllable, which is the simplest way to remember this pairing. A further anchor is that Odissi was reconstructed in living memory rather than handed down unbroken, which is why its gurus are named so precisely in the question papers.

The correct answer is D, New Delhi. The institution stands at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, the house where Jawaharlal Nehru lived as Prime Minister for sixteen years, and it was opened to the public in 1964 after his death. It holds a museum on his life, a research library on modern Indian history with private papers and old newspapers, and a planetarium added in 1984. It works under the Ministry of Culture and has since been renamed the Prime Ministers' Museum and Library. The name Teen Murti comes from the three-soldier memorial in the circle outside. A is wrong because Kolkata has the Victoria Memorial and the National Library. B is wrong because Prayagraj has Anand Bhawan, the Nehru family home turned museum. C is wrong because Mumbai has the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. Exam tip: pair Teen Murti Bhavan with Nehru and Anand Bhawan with Prayagraj.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. The saree is named after the temple town of Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, where it is woven from thick mulberry silk. Its body and its contrasting border are often woven separately and then joined so firmly that the joint holds even if the saree tears, and wide bands of zari are used. Option A is wrong because Kerala weaves the kasavu, an off white cotton saree with a plain gold border, at Balaramapuram and Chendamangalam. Option C is wrong because Andhra Pradesh is known for Venkatagiri and Uppada sarees and for Kalamkari painted cloth. Option D is wrong because Karnataka gives Mysore crepe silk and the Ilkal saree. Do not shift Kanchipuram out of Tamil Nadu. Examiners often shift this saree to a neighbouring southern state, so fix it to the temple town of Kanchipuram itself.

The correct answer is B, Maharashtra. A powada is sung in a loud, declamatory style by a shahir, who narrates a battle or an act of courage, and the deeds of Chhatrapati Shivaji are its favourite subject; Lavani, Bharud, Gondhal and the devotional abhang also belong to Maharashtra. Option A, Gujarat, is known for Garba, Garbi, the storytelling form Dayro and the Bhavai theatre. Option C, Karnataka, has Bhavageete and Sugama Sangeetha, and the Yakshagana theatre with its own singing. Option D, Madhya Pradesh, has Faag and Alha, the last being a ballad too, which is what makes this option worth a second look; Alha, however, narrates the deeds of Alha and Udal in the Bundelkhand region and not those of Shivaji. Keep one more Maharashtrian pair in mind: Lavani is sung and danced to the dholki, while the abhang belongs to the Varkari saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram.

The correct answer is B, Protima Gauri. Protima Gauri, also known as Protima Bedi, founded Nrityagram near Bengaluru as a residential village where dancers live and train in the manner of the old gurukul, and she herself was a dancer of Odissi. Option A is wrong because Sonal Mansingh is a distinguished dancer of Odissi and Bharatanatyam but is not the founder of Nrityagram. Option C is wrong because Kumudini Lakhia founded Kadamb at Ahmedabad and belongs to Kathak. Option D is wrong because Sanjukta Panigrahi, the Odissi dancer who took the form to international stages, founded no such institution. The institutions and founders are best learnt as a short list, since a question will usually give one and ask for the other. The five institutions worth holding together are Kalakshetra, Kerala Kalamandalam, Darpana, Nrityagram and Kadamb, with their founders beside them.

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 A, tie and dye. In Bandhani the cloth is pinched and tied with thread in thousands of tiny knots before it is dipped in dye, so the tied points resist the colour and appear as white or light dots in patterns of squares, waves and flowers. Kutch, Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Sikar are its known centres. Option B is wrong because wax resist dyeing is Batik, practised in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, where molten wax and not thread blocks the dye. Option C is wrong because metal thread embroidery is Zardozi, a needle craft of Lucknow and Bhopal. Option D is wrong because painting with a kalam or pen is Kalamkari of Andhra Pradesh. Bandhani is dyeing, not weaving or stitching.

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.

The correct answer is A, Vallathol Narayana Menon. The poet Vallathol Narayana Menon founded Kerala Kalamandalam in the twentieth century to revive Kathakali and the other performing arts of Kerala, and the gurus trained there carry the name of the institution before their own. Option B is wrong because Kumaran Asan, though one of the three great modern Malayalam poets along with Vallathol and Ulloor, founded no such institution. Option C is wrong because Kalamandalam Gopi is a celebrated Kathakali performer trained at the institution, not its founder, and his name itself shows the connection. Option D is wrong because Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was a novelist, the author of Chemmeen, with no role in the revival of the dance. The habit of placing the institution's name before a performer's own, as in Kalamandalam Gopi, is itself a clue the question paper often relies on.

The correct answer is A, Maharashtra. Mardani Khel is the Maratha art of armed combat from Maharashtra, and it is identified by the patta, a straight sword fixed to a gauntlet that covers the forearm, and by the vita, a corded javelin. It grew out of the fighting methods of the hill forts of the Deccan. Option B is wrong; Gujarat has stick dances and folk contests but Mardani Khel is not placed there. Option C is wrong, and it is the useful distractor, because Madhya Pradesh appears in this chapter only as the state that declared Mallakhamb its state game in 2013. Option D is wrong because Goa has no distinct art of this name in the examination list. Fix the pair of patta and Maharashtra, since the weapon alone is often enough to answer.

The correct answer is B, Lucknow. Chikankari is the hand embroidery of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, worked in white untwisted thread on light cloth, with stitches that show the motif as a shadow through the fabric. The same city is the home of Zardozi, the heavier metal thread work. Option A is wrong because Jaipur and the nearby towns of Sanganer and Bagru are known for block printed cotton, not for shadow embroidery. Option C is wrong because Bhagalpur in Bihar is the silk city, known for tasar weaving rather than for embroidery. Option D is wrong because Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir is known for Kashida embroidery on shawls and for Pashmina weaving. The pair to hold is Lucknow with Chikankari. Examiners also ask what cloth is used for it, and the answer is fine muslin and other light fabrics such as cotton voile.

The correct answer is B, Ashoka. The Great Stupa, Stupa 1 at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, began as a brick mound raised in Ashoka's reign in the third century BCE, beside which he also set up a pillar with a lion capital; the Shungas later encased the mound in stone and added the railings, and the four carved gateways, the toranas, were put up in the Satavahana period. Option A is wrong because Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka's grandfather, is not associated with stupa building. Option C is wrong because the Kushana ruler Kanishka is linked with Gandhara art and with a great stupa at Peshawar, not with Sanchi. Option D is wrong because Harshavardhana ruled in the seventh century CE, long after the stupa was finished. Sanchi was noticed by General Henry Taylor in 1818 and became a World Heritage Site in 1989.

The correct answer is C, Kuchipudi. Vempati Chinna Satyam was the guru who shaped the modern repertoire of Kuchipudi, the dance that takes its name from a village in Andhra Pradesh and is traditionally traced to the saint-poet Siddhendra Yogi. Option A is wrong because Manipuri is associated with Guru Bipin Singh and the Jhaveri sisters. Option B is wrong because Mohiniyattam is associated with Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma and Bharati Shivaji. Option D is wrong because Sattriya comes from the sattras of Assam and is traced to Srimanta Sankardeva. Another pair of names worth holding with Kuchipudi is Raja and Radha Reddy, the husband and wife duo who carried the form to audiences across the country and abroad. Kuchipudi is also distinctive for being named after a village rather than a region or a state, which is a detail papers sometimes test on its own.

The correct answer is D, lotus. The star-shaped shrine of Gurudwara Shri Hemkund Sahib is built with a roof shaped like an upturned lotus, a flower that also appears in the story of the site. The gurudwara stands in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand at a height of over 4,600 metres, beside a glacial lake ringed by seven peaks called Sapt Shring. It is dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, who describes the place in his composition Bachittar Natak, and the shrine stays open only from about May to October because of snow. Options A, B and C are wrong because the rose, the marigold and the sunflower have no place in the design of this gurudwara; the marigold is used in garlands and the other two are garden flowers. The lotus, on the other hand, is a standing symbol of purity in Indian religious architecture. Exam tip: Hemkund Sahib is in Uttarakhand, near the Valley of Flowers National Park.

The correct answer is A, Telangana. Bhoodan Pochampally in the Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district of Telangana weaves the ikat saree known as Pochampally, in which the yarn is tied and dyed to produce geometric diamonds and squares with softly blurred edges. It was among the first Indian textile products to receive a geographical indication tag. Option B is wrong because the ikat of Odisha is the Sambalpuri bandha, which uses shankha, chakra and flower motifs. Option C is wrong because Tamil Nadu is the home of Kanchipuram and Konrad temple sarees, which are brocade weaves. Option D is wrong because the ikat of Gujarat is the double ikat Patola of Patan. Pochampally is also called the silk city of Telangana. For revision, link ikat with three states, Gujarat for Patola, Odisha for Sambalpuri and Telangana for Pochampally.

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 A, Manipuri. Guru Bipin Singh was the teacher who systematised Manipuri dance and, with the Jhaveri sisters as his leading pupils, carried it from Manipur to concert stages across India. Option B is wrong because Odissi is associated with Kelucharan Mohapatra and Pankaj Charan Das. Option C is wrong because Kathak is associated with Birju Maharaj and Sitara Devi. Option D is wrong because Kathakali is associated with Guru Kunchu Kurup and the gurus of Kerala Kalamandalam. Manipuri is recognised by its Ras Leela themes drawn from the life of Krishna and by its gentle, rounded movement, which sets it apart from the sharp footwork of Kathak and the strong lines of Bharatanatyam. Manipuri is also the only one of the eight classical forms whose home state lies in the north-east along with Sattriya of Assam, and the two are often set together.

The correct answer is B, Kalamkari. Kalamkari is cloth decorated with vegetable dyes, and it has two schools, both in Andhra Pradesh. At Srikalahasti the work is drawn freehand with a pen like kalam and the subjects are taken from temple mythology, while at Machilipatnam the designs are printed with carved wooden blocks. Option A is wrong because Phulkari is the bright darn stitch flower embroidery of Punjab, worked on khaddar. Option C is wrong because Kantha is the running stitch quilting of West Bengal, made from layers of old cloth. Option D is wrong because Bandhani is the tie and dye craft of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Hold the pair Kalamkari with Andhra Pradesh and remember its two towns. Note also that the word kalamkari joins kalam, meaning a pen, with kari, meaning work, which is itself a one mark question.

The correct answer is B, Srimanta Sankardeva. Sattriya grew in the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam, and is traced to the saint and reformer Srimanta Sankardeva, who used dance and drama to carry his teaching to ordinary people; it is the most recent of the eight forms to be recognised as classical. Option A is wrong because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu led the Vaishnava movement in Bengal and Odisha and is not the figure behind this form. Option C is wrong because Siddhendra Yogi is the saint-poet traditionally associated with Kuchipudi in Andhra Pradesh, and he is the strongest distractor here. Option D is wrong because Madhavdeva was Sankardeva's principal disciple, who carried the tradition forward rather than beginning it. Sattriya was recognised as a classical form much later than the others, which is the detail that most often appears alongside the name of Sankardeva.

The correct answer is A, Punjab. Phulkari, meaning flower work, is the embroidery of Punjab, in which bright untwisted silk thread is worked in darn stitch from the reverse of a coarse handspun khaddar cloth, so the pattern fills the surface with flowers. The bagh is the variety in which the embroidery covers the ground completely. Option B is wrong because the story telling quilt embroidery of Bihar is Sujani, from Bhusura in Muzaffarpur, and Madhubani is its painting tradition. Option C is wrong because the counted thread embroidery of Karnataka is Kasuti, which leaves no knots at the back. Option D is wrong because Manipur is known for its handloom weaving rather than for a named embroidery of this kind. For revision, hold Punjab with Phulkari, Bihar with Sujani, Karnataka with Kasuti and West Bengal with Kantha.