Which one of the following Carnatic music ragas is similar to Raga Bilawal in Hindustani music ?

The correct answer is A, Gujarat. Akbar raised the Buland Darwaza, the lofty southern gateway of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, in 1601 to mark his conquest of Gujarat, and it ranks among the tallest gateways in the world, approached by a long flight of steps and faced in red sandstone inlaid with white marble. Inside the same courtyard stands the marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti, the saint whose blessing Akbar had sought for an heir. Option B, Mewar, was the kingdom of Rana Pratap, and Akbar's campaign there is remembered for the siege of Chittorgarh and the battle of Haldighati, not for this gateway. Option C, Bengal, was annexed earlier in Akbar's reign. Option D, Malwa, was taken in the 1560s. Fatehpur Sikri as a whole is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the gateway's inscriptions carry sayings attributed to Jesus, a detail papers occasionally use.

The correct answer is A, Mattancherry in Kochi, Kerala, where the Paradesi Synagogue was built in 1568 beside the Mattancherry Palace, in the quarter long called Jew Town. It is famous for its floor of hand-painted blue Chinese tiles, each of them different, its Belgian glass chandeliers, its clock tower and the copper plates recording the privileges granted to the Jewish community of the Malabar coast. Option B, Byculla in Mumbai, belongs to the Bene Israel community, whose Gate of Mercy synagogue is the oldest in that city, while the Knesset Eliyahoo serves the Baghdadi Jews. Option C, Park Street in Kolkata, is near the Magen David and Beth El synagogues of the city's Baghdadi Jews. Option D, Thane, has a Bene Israel presence but no synagogue of this age. The three communities to remember are the Cochin Jews, the Bene Israel and the Baghdadi Jews.

The correct answer is B, Udvada in Gujarat, where the Iranshah Atash Behram keeps the fire that Parsi tradition traces to the community which left Iran and landed on the Gujarat coast. An Atash Behram is the highest of the three grades of Zoroastrian fire temple, and of the nine in the world eight are in India, at Udvada, Navsari, Surat and Mumbai, with the ninth at Yazd in Iran. Option A, Navsari, does have an Atash Behram and is an important Parsi centre, but it is not the seat of the Iranshah fire. Option C, Sanjan, is the place where the migrants are said to have come ashore, which makes it the cleverest distractor, since the fire later moved through several places before reaching Udvada. Option D, Malabar Hill in Mumbai, is the site of the Towers of Silence, the community's traditional place for the disposal of the dead, not a fire temple. Non-Parsis are not admitted inside a fire temple.

The correct answer is B, the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, begun by Qutbuddin Aibak in the Qutb complex at Delhi at the end of the twelfth century and the earliest surviving mosque in the country. Its name means 'might of Islam', its screen of pointed arches was raised by masons trained in Indian temple technique, and the Iron Pillar stands in its courtyard. Option A, the Jama Masjid, is Shah Jahan's great mosque completed in the 1650s and formally called the Masjid-i-Jahan Numa; it is the largest mosque in India but far from the oldest. Option C, the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque, exists in two famous versions, Shah Jahan's in Agra Fort and Aurangzeb's in the Red Fort at Delhi. Option D, the Mecca Masjid at Hyderabad, was built by the Qutb Shahi rulers near the Charminar. Separately remember the Cheraman Juma Masjid at Kodungallur in Kerala, which tradition holds to be the first mosque built in India.

The correct answer is A, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, the saint who brought the Chishti order to India and settled at Ajmer, where his tomb became the best known dargah in the subcontinent; the annual Urs there draws pilgrims of every faith, and Mughal emperors from Akbar onwards made the journey. Option B, Nizamuddin Auliya, was a later Chishti saint of Delhi, and his dargah in the Nizamuddin area is among the most visited in the capital. Option C, Shaikh Salim Chishti, is buried in the marble tomb inside the courtyard of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, the saint whose blessing Akbar sought for an heir. Option D, Khwaja Bande Nawaz, whose full name is Sayyid Muhammad Hussaini Gesudaraz, is buried at Gulbarga in Karnataka. All four belong to the Chishti tradition, so fix each name against its town: Ajmer, Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri and Gulbarga.