Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was a ___________ player of profound depth, favouring sparse and slow realisations of ragas.

Correct — D. Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar played the rudra veena, the deep-voiced stick zither of the dhrupad tradition, and the description in the question — sparse, slow, profound — is the dhrupad alap he was known for.

He belonged to the Dagar family, the lineage that carried dhrupad through the twentieth century. He also rebuilt the instrument, fitting larger gourds and heavier strings so that it could hold the long unhurried tones his style needed.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Sitar — The sitar is the plucked lute of the modern concert stage, associated with Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan, and not with the Dagar dhrupad line.
• (b)
  Violin — The violin in Indian classical music is a borrowed European instrument played sitting down, and it is a mainstay of Carnatic performance rather than of dhrupad.
• (c)
  Flute — The flute, the bansuri, belongs to a separate Hindustani lineage running through Pannalal Ghosh and Hariprasad Chaurasia — no Dagar is known as a flautist.

Dhrupad is the older of the two Hindustani vocal styles, built on a long unmetred alap in which the raga is opened out note by note before any composition begins. Its instruments are chosen for sustain, not for speed.

The rudra veena is that instrument — a thick fretted tube with two large gourd resonators beneath it, played slowly on heavy strings. Zia Mohiuddin Dagar is the musician who kept it on the concert platform when the tradition had nearly emptied out.

Key facts

• Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was a rudra veena player in the dhrupad tradition.
• The rudra veena is a stick zither with two large gourd resonators, suited to the slow alap of dhrupad.
• The Dagar family is the best-known lineage of dhrupad musicians in India.
• Zia Mohiuddin Dagar modified the rudra veena with larger gourds and thicker strings for greater sustain.

Common traps

• Reading 'profound depth' as a hint towards the sitar because it is the instrument everyone knows
• Confusing the rudra veena with the Saraswati veena of Carnatic music
• Assuming every famous Ustad played a plucked lute such as sitar or sarod

No directly related past PYQ was found.