Who gave the Saang folk theatre of Haryana its settled form in the eighteenth century?
- A.Pandit Lakhmi Chand
- B.Pandit Deepchand
- C.Baje Bhagat
- D.Pandit Mange Ram
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Pandit Deepchand. Pandit Deepchand is the first great name in the history of Saang and is credited with turning a loose village entertainment into a sung play with a structure: an opening invocation, a story carried in verse, prose passages between the songs and a troupe built around the poet. Everything the later Saang poets did rests on the pattern he set.
Option A, Pandit Lakhmi Chand, is the most celebrated Saang poet of all and is called the Surya Kavi and the Shakespeare of Haryana, but he belongs to the twentieth century and worked within the form rather than founding it, which makes him the commonest wrong answer here. Option C, Baje Bhagat, and option D, Pandit Mange Ram, are also major poets of the tradition who came after Deepchand. The question separates the founder of the form from its greatest practitioner, and both names must be kept apart.
Read the full article: Folk Music, Dance and Saang of Haryana: Forms and Facts
Practice Questions
View allWhich poet of Haryana is honoured as the Surya Kavi and called the Shakespeare of Haryana?
- A.Pandit Lakhmi Chand
- B.Baje Bhagat
- C.Pandit Deepchand
- D.Dhanpat Singh
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Lakhmi Chand is the best known Saang poet of Haryana, honoured as the Surya Kavi or sun poet and commonly called the Shakespeare of Haryana for the range of his plays and the quality of his raginis.
Read the full explanation →The Dhamal dance of Haryana is performed mainly by
- A.Women at weddings
- B.Men in a circle on full moon nights
- C.Children during Holi
- D.Devotees carrying the chhari
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Dhamal is counted the oldest dance of Haryana and belongs mainly to the Mahendragarh and Jhajjar belt, where the men of the village gather on the open ground on a full moon night of the Phalgun season, form a wide circle and dance to the beat of the dhamal drum…
Read the full explanation →The Loor dance, in which two facing groups of women sing in question and answer, belongs to which tract of Haryana?
- A.The Bagar tract
- B.Mewat
- C.The Kurukshetra plain
- D.The Yamuna belt
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Loor belongs to the sandy Bagar country of the south-west of the state, around Bhiwani and Mahendragarh, and is danced by women and girls in the month of Phalgun and at Holi, when the spring crop is standing.
Read the full explanation →On which occasion is the Khoria dance of Haryana performed?
- A.After the bridegroom's party leaves for the bride's village
- B.On the birth of a child
- C.At the end of the harvest
- D.During Gugga Naumi
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Khoria is danced by the women of the household among themselves once the men have set out with the wedding procession.
Read the full explanation →The Gugga dance of Haryana is performed in which month of the Hindu calendar?
- A.Bhadon
- B.Phalgun
- C.Sawan
- D.Kartik
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The Gugga or Gugga Naumi observance falls in the month of Bhadon, when the followers of Gugga Pir, the folk deity associated with protection from snakes, carry the chhari, a tall staff decorated with peacock feathers and coloured cloth, from village to village, dancing and singing his ballad as they…
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