SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 9 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.

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.

Alla Rakha is famous for playing which of the following musical instruments?

(a)Shehnai
(b)Bansuri
(c)Tabla
(d)Damaru

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Ustad Alla Rakha (1919-2000) was a tabla player of the Punjab gharana, and the best-known accompanist in twentieth-century Hindustani music.

His long partnership with the sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar carried the tabla to Western concert audiences, and he is the father of the tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain.

The instrument the stem asks for is the tabla, option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Shehnai — The shehnai is the double-reed wind instrument of north Indian ceremonial music, and the name attached to it is Ustad Bismillah Khan, not Alla Rakha.
(b)
Bansuri — The bansuri is the side-blown bamboo flute. Its standard names are Pannalal Ghosh and Hariprasad Chaurasia, and it is a melody instrument rather than a percussion one.
(d)
Damaru — The damaru is the small two-headed hourglass drum associated with Shiva. It belongs to iconography and ritual, not to the Hindustani classical concert stage.

Concept

A musician-to-instrument list answers this whole family of questions, so build the list rather than memorising loose facts.

The tabla is a pair of drums, the wooden dayan under the right hand and the metal bayan under the left, and it is the principal rhythm instrument of Hindustani music.

Tabla players are grouped into gharanas, of which the Punjab gharana is Alla Rakha's. Zakir Hussain, his son, carried the same lineage forward and is himself a frequent SSC answer.

Accompanists rarely become household names, which is what makes Alla Rakha unusual and why SSC can rely on the recall. His performances with Ravi Shankar abroad in the 1960s put an accompanying instrument in the spotlight.

Key facts

Alla Rakha lived from 1919 to 2000 and belonged to the Punjab gharana of tabla.
He was the regular tabla accompanist of the sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar.
He was the father of the tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain.
The tabla is a pair of drums, the dayan played with the right hand and the bayan with the left.

Study next

Hindustani musicians matched to their instruments, from sitar and sarod to sarangi and rudra veenaGharanas of tabla and of vocal music, and the family associated with eachCarnatic instruments such as the mridangam, veena and nadaswaram

Common traps

Answering shehnai because both Alla Rakha and Bismillah Khan carry the title Ustad.
Confusing Alla Rakha with his son Zakir Hussain when the question fixes an award year.
Treating the damaru as a classical concert drum rather than a ritual and iconographic one.

The musician-to-instrument item recurs across shifts with the names swapped: Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan at 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.12, Buddhadev Dasgupta at 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.15, Ustad Sabri Khan at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.11 and Arvind Parikh at 26 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.12.

Award-year versions run beside them, as with Zakir Hussain at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.