Yakshagana, a night-long folk theatre form combining dance, music and dialogue, belongs to which state?

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. Kathputli is the string puppet, or marionette, tradition of Rajasthan. The figures are carved from wood, painted in bright colours and dressed in long trailing skirts, and they are made without legs; the puppeteer works them from above with strings while a dholak keeps time and a sharp whistling sound stands in for the puppets' speech. Option B is wrong because the string puppets of Odisha are called Kundhei or Sakhi Kundhei, and Odisha is better known in this chapter for the shadow form Ravanachhaya. Option C is wrong because the string puppets of Karnataka are called Gombeyatta, which must be kept apart from the shadow form Togalu Gombeyatta of the same state. Option D is wrong because West Bengal is the home of Putul Nautch, a rod puppet form.

The correct answer is B, Andhra Pradesh. Tholu Bommalata is the leather shadow puppet theatre of Andhra Pradesh, and its figures are the largest of all Indian shadow puppets, made of translucent coloured hide so that the colours show on the screen; the stories come from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Option A is wrong because the puppet form of Tamil Nadu is Bommalattam, which combines the rod and the string techniques, not shadow play. Option C is wrong because the shadow puppet form of Kerala is Tholpavakoothu, performed at night in the courtyards of Bhagavati temples on the text of the Kamba Ramayanam. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra is known for the folk theatre forms Tamasha and Dashavatar rather than for a puppet tradition of this kind. Remember that the shadow form is identified in a question by the screen and the lamp, since the audience never sees the puppet itself, only its outline.

The correct answer is C, Odisha. Ravanachhaya is the shadow puppet theatre of Odisha, and it is the most austere of the Indian shadow traditions: the figures are cut from deer skin, have no joints and are left uncoloured, so only a plain black shadow falls on the screen, and they are smaller than the puppets of any other tradition. Option A is wrong because the shadow form of Andhra Pradesh is Tholu Bommalata, whose large coloured figures are the opposite of Ravanachhaya in every respect. Option B is wrong because the shadow form of Karnataka is Togalu Gombeyatta, where the size of the puppet marks the rank of the character. Option D is wrong because Bihar is associated with Yampuri, a rod puppet form in which the puppets are carved from wood in one piece.

The correct answer is A, Bihar. Yampuri is the rod puppet tradition of Bihar. Its puppets are carved from wood in one piece, without the joints that rod puppets elsewhere have, which makes them harder to handle and demands greater skill of the puppeteer. Option B is wrong because the rod puppet form of West Bengal is Putul Nautch, whose large figures are jointed at the neck and the shoulders and are worked from below by a puppeteer standing behind a screen. Option C is wrong because Assam's contribution to this chapter is the folk theatre Bhaona, based on the Ankiya Naat written by Srimanta Sankardeva, rather than a puppet form. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh is associated with the folk theatre Maach, a sung form of the Malwa region.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Pavakathakali, also known as Pavakoothu, is the glove puppet tradition of Kerala, and it borrows its costume, make-up and gesture from Kathakali, so the puppet heads carry the same towering head-dress and painted faces. The puppet fits over the hand, with the head on the index finger and the two arms on the thumb and the middle finger. Option A is wrong because the Tamil Nadu form is Bommalattam, which uses rods and strings together and is among the largest puppet forms in the country. Option C is wrong because Karnataka has Gombeyatta, a string form, and Togalu Gombeyatta, a shadow form. Option D is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has the shadow form Tholu Bommalata, and glove puppetry is not its known tradition. Among the four techniques the glove puppet is the smallest and needs no stage machinery, which is why it survives as a village and temple form rather than a court one.