SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 10 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Annapurna Devi is associated with which of the following musical instruments?

(a)Rudra veena
(b)Surbahar
(c)Ektara
(d)Taal

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Annapurna Devi played the surbahar, the bass sitar — larger than a sitar, tuned lower, and suited to the slow unmetred alap with which a raga opens.

She was the daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan of the Maihar gharana and learned the instrument from him.

She performed in public very rarely and taught for most of her life, so she is identified by the instrument rather than by a body of recordings. Option (b) names it.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Rudra veena — Rudra veena is the deep-toned stick zither of the Dhrupad tradition, held across the body and played in a different repertoire altogether. It is not the instrument Annapurna Devi is identified with.
(c)
Ektara — Ektara is the single-stringed drone of folk and devotional music, carried by the Bauls of Bengal. With one string and no fretted neck it cannot carry the raga work in question.
(d)
Taal — Taal is the rhythmic cycle a composition is set in — the time-measure of Indian music. The question asks for an instrument, and a taal is the framework an instrument is played within.

Concept

Hindustani music's plucked string instruments are easiest to hold apart by register and repertoire.

The sitar carries the main body of instrumental raga music. The surbahar is its bass counterpart, built larger so it can sustain the slow alap.

The sarod is fretless with a metal fingerboard, and the rudra veena belongs to Dhrupad.

Annapurna Devi came out of the Maihar gharana founded by her father Ustad Allauddin Khan — the same lineage that produced the sarod player Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, her brother, and the sitar player Pandit Ravi Shankar.

SSC's culture block runs on person-to-instrument pairs. Build the list by family and gharana rather than as a flat roll of names, because the lineages give you several answers at once.

Key facts

Annapurna Devi played the surbahar, the bass sitar.
She was the daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan, founder of the Maihar gharana.
She received the Padma Bhushan in 1977.
The surbahar is larger than the sitar and tuned lower, which suits it to the alap section of a raga.

Study next

Surbahar, sitar and sarod: how the three plucked instruments differ in build and roleThe Maihar gharana and the musicians who came out of itAlap, jor and jhala as the sections of a raga performance

Common traps

Choosing rudra veena because it is also a deep-sounding string instrument. It belongs to Dhrupad, not to this lineage.
Treating taal as an instrument when it is the rhythmic cycle.
Pairing her with the sitar because of the sitar players in her family. The surbahar is the instrument she is named for.

Person-to-instrument pairs recur through the culture block, set as a one-to-one match.

Compare 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.15 (Buddhadev Dasgupta, keyed to sarod), 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.11 (Ustad Sabri Khan, keyed to sarangi) and 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.25 (Pandit Ram Narayan, also keyed to sarangi).

The percussion side is asked the same way at 25 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.9, on Alla Rakha and the tabla.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.