SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 6 of 100

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 10 September 2026.

Which famous santoor player was honoured with the Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award in 1998?

(a)Tarun Bhattacharya
(b)Abhay Sopori
(c)Satish Vyas
(d)Shivkumar Sharma

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (1938-2022) is the musician who took the santoor, a struck-string folk instrument of Kashmir's Sufiana tradition, and established it on the Hindustani classical concert stage.

He is the santoor name Indian music writing is built around, and the key gives him the Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award named in the stem.

Read the item honestly: all four names here are santoor players, so the instrument decides nothing. Only the award separates them, and it goes to option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Tarun Bhattacharya — Tarun Bhattacharya is a santoor player too, keyed as such at 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.7, so his instrument cannot rule him out. The stem is settled by the award, which the key does not give him.
(b)
Abhay Sopori — Abhay Sopori is a santoor player of the Kashmiri Sopori lineage. Again the instrument matches and the award does not, which is the only ground on which this option falls.
(c)
Satish Vyas — Satish Vyas is a santoor player as well. The question turns entirely on who received the award named in the stem, and the key names Shivkumar Sharma.

Concept

The santoor is a trapezoid box zither struck with a pair of light wooden mallets called kalam, and it came into Hindustani classical music from the Sufiana mausiqi of Kashmir.

Its problem as a classical instrument was meend, the continuous glide between notes that a sitar or sarod produces easily and a struck string does not. Shivkumar Sharma reworked the instrument and the technique until it could carry a full raga exposition.

That is why SSC treats him as the santoor's defining name rather than as one player among several.

This is a name-plus-award item, not a name-plus-instrument item, and it is harder than it looks because every option is a genuine santoor player. If you did not know the award, no amount of instrument knowledge would have saved the mark.

Key facts

Shivkumar Sharma lived from 1938 to 2022 and made the Kashmiri santoor a Hindustani classical concert instrument.
He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1986, which SSC itself asks at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.16.
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2001.
With the flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia he composed Hindi film scores under the joint name Shiv-Hari.

Study next

Indian musicians matched to their instruments, the commonest SSC art-and-culture formatThe santoor, sarod, sitar and rudra veena, and the family each belongs toCivilian and Sangeet Natak Akademi honours awarded to classical musicians

Common traps

Answering from the instrument alone, which cannot work when every option plays the santoor.
Confusing the Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, a different honour of a different year.
Assuming the most famous name automatically holds every award attached to the instrument.

SSC asks the same musicians from either end. At 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.7 the name is given and the instrument is the answer, while here the instrument is given and the name is the answer.

The award-year form appears at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.16, which asks what Shivkumar Sharma received in 1986.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.