The renowned ghazal singer Girija Devi was born in ________.

Correct — D. Girija Devi was born in Varanasi, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, in 1929.

She sang in the Banaras gharana, the school named after that city, and her repertoire — thumri above all, with kajri, chaiti and tappa — is the eastern, purab ang tradition of the same region.

So the city, the gharana and the style all point one way: option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Bihar — Bihar adjoins the Bhojpuri-speaking east of Uttar Pradesh and shares much of its folk repertoire, which is what makes it tempting — but Girija Devi's city, Varanasi, is in Uttar Pradesh.
• (b)
  Punjab — Punjab's best-known Hindustani vocal lineage is the Patiala gharana, a different school altogether from the Banaras gharana Girija Devi belonged to.
• (c)
  Karnataka — Karnataka's Hindustani names — Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubai Hangal — belong to the Kirana gharana, and the state is otherwise Carnatic music country.

Gharana questions are usually solved by geography, because a gharana is named for the place it grew in.

Banaras gharana therefore means Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh — and Girija Devi, known to students as Appaji, was its most celebrated twentieth-century voice.

Her form was the thumri, a short semi-classical love lyric, sung with the seasonal kajri and chaiti of the same region. She taught for years in Kolkata, where she died in 2017.

Key facts

• Girija Devi was born in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, in 1929.
• She belonged to the Banaras gharana and was best known for thumri, kajri, chaiti and tappa.
• She received the Padma Shri in 1972, the Padma Bhushan in 1989 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2016.
• She died in Kolkata in 2017.

Common traps

• Taking the stem's genre label as a clue to the region.
• Placing an eastern-UP artist in Bihar because the folk repertoire is shared.

No directly related past PYQ was found.