The Emmy Awards, seen in the news, are presented for excellence in which of the following fields?

The correct answer is A, Bhanu Athaiya. She won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1983 for Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, sharing the award with John Mollo, and became the first Indian of any kind to receive an Oscar. She had begun her career with the film CID and designed costumes for more than a hundred Hindi films.

Option B, Satyajit Ray, is the answer most candidates choose wrongly. His Academy Award of 1992 was an honorary one for lifetime achievement, given nine years after Athaiya's win and in the year of his death. Option C, A. R. Rahman, won two Oscars in 2009 for Slumdog Millionaire, for the original score and for the song Jai Ho. Option D, Resul Pookutty, won the award for sound mixing for the same film in the same year, so both are much later than 1983.

The correct answer is C, Tanvi Shah. She sang the Spanish lines of Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire and also wrote them, and when the song won the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media in 2010 she became the first Indian woman to win a Grammy award. A. R. Rahman won two Grammy awards at the same ceremony for the music of the film.

Option A, Monali Thakur, is a playback singer who won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer, an Indian honour and not a Grammy. Option B, Neeti Mohan, is a singer who came to notice through a television talent show and has sung for many Hindi films, but she has not won a Grammy. Option D, Palak Muchhal, is a playback singer known as much for her charity work for children with heart ailments. None of the three has won this award.

The correct answer is B, Best Costume Design. Bhanu Athaiya designed the costumes for Gandhi, the film Richard Attenborough made in 1982, and shared the Academy Award of 1983 in that category with the British designer John Mollo. The film itself won eight Oscars that year, among them Best Picture and Best Director.

Option A, Best Actress, has never been won by an Indian. Option C, Best Original Score, is the category in which A. R. Rahman won in 2009 for Slumdog Millionaire, twenty six years later. Option D, Best Documentary, is a different branch of the awards; in the short film branch of it The Elephant Whisperers won in 2023. Remembering the category with the name is what this question tests, because all four are real Academy Award categories.

The correct answer is B, Slumdog Millionaire, the film directed by Danny Boyle and set in Mumbai. A. R. Rahman won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and, with the lyricist Gulzar, for the Best Original Song Jai Ho. At the same ceremony Resul Pookutty won the award for sound mixing, so four Indians were honoured for one film.

Option A, Lagaan, was nominated in 2002 in the foreign language film category but did not win, although its music was also by Rahman. Option C, Life of Pi, based on the novel by Yann Martel and set largely on the sea with an Indian boy as its hero, won four Oscars in 2013, but its score was written by Mychael Danna. Option D, Gandhi, won eight Oscars in 1983, including the costume design award of Bhanu Athaiya, but its music was not Rahman's.

The correct answer is C, 1992. The Academy gave Satyajit Ray an honorary award for his lifetime of work in cinema, and it was handed to him in a Kolkata hospital as he was too ill to travel. He died a few weeks later in the same year, and the Government of India conferred the Bharat Ratna on him in 1992 as well.

Option A, 1983, is the year Bhanu Athaiya won the costume design Oscar for Gandhi, which is the confusion this question rests on. Option B, 1985, is the year Ray was given the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in India, an honour that is often mixed with the Academy award in the options. Option D, 2009, is the year of the four Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire. Ray's films, beginning with Pather Panchali of 1955, had by then been honoured at Cannes, Venice and Berlin.