Kajri, a folk song form of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is sung chiefly in which season?

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. Lotia takes its name from the lota, the small metal water pot that women carry on the head in the procession with which it is performed, and it belongs to the folk tradition of Rajasthan, alongside Maand, Panihari and the Banna-Banni wedding songs. Option B, Tamil Nadu, has its own folk forms, chiefly Villu Pattu, the bow song, and Kavadi Chindu, but Lotia is not among them. Option C, Punjab, is the home of Tappa, Mahiya, Jugni and Boliyan, sung to the tumbi and the algoza. Option D, Assam, is known for Bihu geet sung at the spring festival, the Borgeet of Sankardeva and Zikir. The water pot in the name is the clue that points to the dry country of the west.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal. The Bauls are wandering singers of Bengal who reject caste and ritual and sing of the man of the heart, accompanying themselves on the one-stringed ektara and the small drum called duggi; their songs were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. Option A, Odisha, is the home of Dalkhai, Jhumar and Chaiti Ghoda, which are quite separate traditions. Option C, Assam, is known for Bihu geet, Borgeet and Zikir, and its characteristic instruments are the pepa and the gogona. Option D, Bihar, has Sohar, Bidesia and the Chhath songs made famous by Sharda Sinha. Bengal's own river songs, Bhatiali and Bhawaiya, are often set in the same question as Baul.

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 A, Chhattisgarh. In Pandwani a single performer tells the story of the Pandavas in song and speech, holding a tambura and acting out the scenes, and Teejan Bai, who received the Padma Vibhushan, carried the form from her village to audiences across the world. Option B, Odisha, has Dalkhai, the harvest song of the western districts, and Chaiti Ghoda, in which a dummy horse is used. Option C, Jharkhand, has Jhumar, Domkach and Paiki, which accompany dance more than narration. Option D, Telangana, does have narrative traditions, namely Burrakatha and Oggu Katha, which makes it a fair distractor; but those are Telugu forms, and the Mahabharata narration in the Chhattisgarhi language is Pandwani. Pandwani is sung in two styles, the Vedamati in which the singer stays seated and the Kapalik in which the singer rises and acts the scenes.

The correct answer is B, the ektara. The name means one string, and the instrument is a single string stretched over a gourd with a bamboo neck that the player presses to change the pitch; the Baul holds it in one hand while singing and dancing, often with a small drum called duggi tied at the waist. Option A, the sarangi, is a bowed instrument of many strings used in Hindustani classical music and in the folk music of Rajasthan, not by the Bauls. Option C, the shehnai, is the double reed wind instrument played at weddings and in temples, raised to the concert stage by Bismillah Khan. Option D, the nadaswaram, is the long wind instrument of temple music in Tamil Nadu, usually played with the thavil drum.