Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia is famous for playing which instrument?

The correct answer is B, Sushira vadya. Sushira means hollow, and the class covers every instrument in which a column of air inside a tube is set vibrating. The bansuri, the shehnai, the nadaswaram, the pungi, the algoza and the conch all belong to it, and so does the harmonium, whose reeds are sounded by air from a bellows.

Option A, tata vadya, is the class of stringed instruments such as the sitar, the sarod, the sarangi, the veena and the santoor. Option C, avanaddha vadya, covers the instruments with a stretched hide, that is the drums, among them the tabla, the pakhawaj, the mridangam and the chenda. Option D, ghana vadya, covers the solid instruments of metal, clay or wood that sound when struck or shaken without any tuning, such as the manjira, the ghatam and the jaltarang. All four names come from the same classification, so they are always offered together.

The correct answer is C, Shehnai. Bismillah Khan played the shehnai, a double reed wind instrument long associated with weddings, temple processions and auspicious beginnings in north India, and he is credited with carrying it from ceremonial use onto the classical concert stage. He spent his life in Varanasi and received the Bharat Ratna in 2001.

Option A, the sarod, is the fretless plucked instrument of Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan. Option B, the sarangi, is the bowed instrument said to come closest to the human voice, whose best known player is Ram Narayan. Option D, the santoor, is the struck string instrument of Kashmir that Shivkumar Sharma established in classical concerts. Every option names a real instrument with its own famous player, so the question is a straight test of the artist and instrument table.

The correct answer is A, Santoor. The santoor is a trapezoid wooden box carrying many strings over small bridges, struck with a pair of light curved mallets. It comes from Kashmir, where it was used in Sufiana music, and Shivkumar Sharma is credited with adapting it for Hindustani classical performance. Bhajan Sopori is the other well known name on the instrument.

Option B, the sitar, belongs to Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Nikhil Banerjee. Option C, the flute or bansuri, is the instrument of Pannalal Ghosh, who brought it into classical concerts, and later of Hariprasad Chaurasia, who often performed alongside Shivkumar Sharma. Option D, the veena, has its own line of players, from S. Balachander and Chitti Babu on the Saraswati veena to Asad Ali Khan on the rudra veena. Note also that the santoor, although struck, is counted among tata vadya because its sound comes from strings.

The correct answer is B, Sarod. The sarod is a plucked instrument with a metal fingerboard and no frets, which lets a player slide continuously between notes and gives it its deep, singing tone. Amjad Ali Khan belongs to a family line of sarod players, and the other great names on the instrument are Allauddin Khan of Maihar and his son Ali Akbar Khan.

Option A, the sitar, is a fretted instrument with sympathetic strings and a gourd resonator, made famous worldwide by Ravi Shankar. Option C, the tabla, is a pair of drums, the wooden dayan and the metal bayan, whose best known players are Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain and Kishan Maharaj. Option D, the shehnai, is the reed wind instrument of Bismillah Khan. Candidates often swap sitar and sarod, so fix the difference: the sitar has frets and the sarod does not.

The correct answer is C, Ghana vadya. The ghatam is a clay pot with nothing stretched across its mouth. The player strikes the body of the pot with fingers, palms and wrists, and changes the tone by moving the mouth of the pot against the stomach. Because the solid body itself vibrates, it falls in the ghana class along with the manjira, the jaltarang and the morsing. Its best known player is T. H. Vikku Vinayakram.

Option A, avanaddha vadya, would require a stretched hide, which the ghatam does not have; the mridangam, the kanjira and the thavil of the same Carnatic ensemble do belong there. Option B, sushira vadya, covers wind instruments such as the nadaswaram and the flute. Option D, tata vadya, covers stringed instruments such as the veena and the violin. The pot shape misleads students into calling it a drum, which is exactly the error the question is set to catch.