MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 96 of 100

Correct — option (1), 'Only A, B, C'. Maruti Chitampalli (1932–2021) was a Maharashtra forest officer turned naturalist and writer whose body of work, spanning wildlife, ornithology and forest life, made him one of Marathi nature writing's most distinctive voices. Ratva (statement A), Pakhar Maya (statement B, 'Pakharmaya') and Chakwa Chandan (statement C, 'Chakwa Chandanam', his autobiographical work) are all genuine titles from his published output, alongside other well-known works such as Ranvata, Jaganatil Deva and Pakshi Jaay Digantara. Statement D, Phulvanti, is not one of his books — it is a work by the historian and writer Babasaheb Purandare, a period tale set in the Peshwa era, entirely unconnected to Chitampalli's nature writing. Statement E, Janglacha Paus, does not appear among Chitampalli's documented bibliography either. Because only A, B and C are genuinely his, the correct selection is 'Only A, B, C'.

• (2)Only B, D, E — Correctly includes Pakhar Maya but wrongly credits Chitampalli with Phulvanti, which is Babasaheb Purandare's period tale of the Peshwa era, and with Janglacha Paus, which does not appear in Chitampalli's documented bibliography — while wrongly dropping Ratva and Chakwa Chandan, both genuinely his.
• (3)Only A, D, B — Correctly includes Ratva and Pakhar Maya but wrongly adds Phulvanti, which belongs to Babasaheb Purandare rather than to Chitampalli, and wrongly drops Chakwa Chandan, his own autobiographical work.
• (4)All of the above — Credits all five titles to Chitampalli, including Phulvanti, which is a documented work of Babasaheb Purandare, and Janglacha Paus, which does not appear among Chitampalli's known published titles — both false additions to an otherwise correct set of three.

Maruti Chitampalli (1932–2021) served in the Maharashtra Forest Department and, after retirement, became one of Marathi literature's leading nature writers, drawing on decades spent among the state's forests to write about birds, animals and forest life with an intimacy few writers in any Indian language have matched. His published works include Ratva, Pakharmaya, Chakwa Chandanam (his autobiography), Ranvata, Jaganatil Deva, Pakshi Jaay Digantara and several others across essays, memoir and reference writing, including a Marathi glossary of terms used by forest-dwelling communities.

MPSC gives sustained weight to Marathi literature and its writers as state-specific general knowledge that a candidate preparing only from national syllabi will not encounter, and Maruti Chitampalli — as Maharashtra's foremost nature writer, closely tied to the state's forests and wildlife — recurs often. This question's structure, mixing genuine Chitampalli titles with the work of a different well-known Marathi author (Babasaheb Purandare) and an unattributed title, rewards a candidate who actually knows the specific books rather than one who recognises 'Marathi nature and history writing' as a single undifferentiated category.

• Maruti Chitampalli (1932–2021) was a Maharashtra Forest Department officer who became a leading Marathi nature writer after retirement.
• His genuine works include Ratva, Pakharmaya, Chakwa Chandanam (autobiography), Ranvata, Jaganatil Deva and Pakshi Jaay Digantara, among others.
• Phulvanti is a work of Babasaheb Purandare, a period tale of the Peshwa era, unconnected to Chitampalli.
• Chitampalli's writing is distinguished by its close, firsthand observation of Maharashtra's forests, birds and wildlife, drawn from his working life as a forest officer.
• He is regarded as a pioneer of nature writing in Marathi, opening a literary genre that had comparatively little precedent in the language before him.

• Assuming any well-known Marathi book title from a broadly similar period must belong to the author being asked about, rather than checking each title individually
• Confusing Chitampalli, a nature and wildlife writer, with Babasaheb Purandare, a historical writer, simply because both are prominent twentieth-century Marathi authors
• Treating an unfamiliar title as automatically genuine, when MPSC's option sets for this kind of question typically include at least one title that does not belong to the named author at all

MPSC regularly tests Marathi authors and their works through a list-selection format that mixes several genuine titles with one or two plausible-sounding titles borrowed from a different, equally prominent Marathi writer, precisely to see whether a candidate's knowledge is title-specific or merely name-recognition of 'famous Marathi author'. The defence is a short, author-by-author list of two or three confidently known titles for each major Marathi writer likely to appear, held separately rather than as a shared pool of 'notable Marathi books'.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Maruti Chitampalli, the Maharashtra nature writer, served for most of his working life in which government department ?

  • (a)Revenue Department
  • (b)Forest Department
  • (c)Agriculture Department
  • (d)Irrigation Department

  Answer(b) Forest Department — his decades of service in Maharashtra's forests gave him the firsthand material for his later nature writing, including works such as Ratva, Pakharmaya and Ranvata.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  'Phulvanti', a period tale set in the Peshwa era, is a work of which Marathi writer ?

  • (a)Maruti Chitampalli
  • (b)Vyankatesh Madgulkar
  • (c)Babasaheb Purandare
  • (d)P. L. Deshpande

  Answer(c) Babasaheb Purandare — known for his historical writing on the Maratha period; Phulvanti is his work, not Chitampalli's, whose own output is nature and wildlife writing rather than historical fiction.