The Purbi style of folk singing of the Bhojpuri region is associated with which composer?
- A.Mahendar Misir
- B.Vidyapati
- C.Bhikhari Thakur
- D.Siyaram Tiwari
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Mahendar Misir. Mahendar Misir of Misrauliya village in Saran district composed and sang Purbi, a light classical folk form built on the longing of a wife whose husband has gone away, and he is remembered as the emperor of Purbi. His songs travelled with Bhojpuri migrants and are still sung by stage and film singers of the region.
Option B, Vidyapati, is the Maithili poet of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries whose padas gave rise to Kirtaniya theatre, a different region and a different language. Option C, Bhikhari Thakur, created Bidesia; his theme of migration is the same as the Purbi theme, which makes him the strongest distractor, but the form Purbi is not his. Option D, Siyaram Tiwari, was a Dhrupad singer of the Darbhanga gharana. Keep the three pairs apart: Purbi and Misir, Bidesia and Thakur, Kirtaniya and Vidyapati.
Read the full article: Folk Music, Dance and Theatre of Bihar: Forms and Regions
Practice Questions
View allBhikhari Thakur, called the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, is best known for creating which form of folk theatre?
- A.Kirtaniya
- B.Bidesia
- C.Nautanki
- D.Reshma-Chuharmal
Show answer
Bhikhari Thakur, born in 1887 at Kutubpur Diyara in Saran district, wrote the play Bidesia about a wife left behind when her husband migrates to Calcutta for work, and the name was then applied to the whole style of Bhojpuri naach he built, with its songs and its launda dancers.
Read the full explanation →The Jhijhiya dance, in which women balance a perforated earthen pot with a lamp in it, belongs to which region of Bihar?
- A.Mithila
- B.Magadh
- C.Shahabad
- D.Chhotanagpur
Show answer
Jhijhiya is danced by women of the Mithila region during Navratri, each carrying on her head an earthen pot pierced with many holes and holding a lighted lamp; the dance is offered to the Goddess and is traditionally believed to turn away witchcraft and evil spells.
Read the full explanation →Which folk dance of north Bihar is performed by a couple in the rainy season on the theme of quarrel, drought and migration?
- A.Domkach
- B.Jat-Jatin
- C.Jhumari
- D.Jharni
Show answer
Jat-Jatin is danced in the Mithila and Koshi tract of north Bihar, usually by a pair representing the husband Jat and the wife Jatin; the song moves through their quarrel, the failure of the rains and the husband leaving the village in search of work, which makes it the folk…
Read the full explanation →Ustad Bismillah Khan, who made the shehnai a solo concert instrument, was born at which place in Bihar?
- A.Dumraon in Buxar
- B.Bettiah in West Champaran
- C.Misrauliya in Saran
- D.Kutubpur in Saran
Show answer
Bismillah Khan was born at Dumraon in 1916, in the present Buxar district, into a family of shehnai players, and later settled at Varanasi.
Read the full explanation →Which gharana of Dhrupad singing belongs to Bihar?
- A.Gwalior
- B.Kirana
- C.Darbhanga
- D.Jaipur-Atrauli
Show answer
The Darbhanga gharana, carried by the Mallick family under the patronage of the Darbhanga Raj, is one of the surviving gharanas of Dhrupad, the oldest form of Hindustani classical singing; Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick and Pandit Siyaram Tiwari belong to it.
Read the full explanation →