Consider the following statements about the book 'Being Indian' by Pavan K. Varma: 1) The book won the Vodafone Crossword Book Award for exploring Indian identity and culture. 2) It received the Sahitya Akademi Award for its contributions to Indian English poetry. Which of the above statements is/are correct?
- (a)Only statement 1 is correct
- (b)Only statement 2 is correct
- (c)Both statements 1 and 2 are correct
- (d)Neither statement 1 nor 2 is correct
Answer
Why
Correct — A. SSC's key accepts statement 1 and rejects statement 2.
Statement 2 is plainly wrong. Being Indian (2004) is a work of non-fiction prose about Indian identity, not poetry, and no Sahitya Akademi Award appears among Varma's recorded honours.
Statement 1 is where the key rests. We could not confirm that award in the sources we checked, which is why this question carries a dispute note.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)Only statement 2 is correct — Statement 2 is false. Being Indian is non-fiction prose, not poetry, and Varma's recorded honours include no Sahitya Akademi Award.
- (c)Both statements 1 and 2 are correct — Statement 2 is false, so both cannot be correct. The book is non-fiction about Indian identity, not a contribution to Indian English poetry.
- (d)Neither statement 1 nor 2 is correct — The key treats statement 1 as true, which rules out "neither". Our doubt about statement 1 is set out in the dispute note on this question.
Concept
Pavan K. Varma, a former diplomat and author, writes mainly non-fiction about Indian culture and society, including The Great Indian Middle Class (1998), Being Indian (2004) and Becoming Indian (2010).
He has also translated poetry into English, including verse by Gulzar, Kaifi Azmi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. None of that makes Being Indian a book of poetry.
Statement 2 fails on its own terms: the book is prose, so an award "for its contributions to Indian English poetry" cannot describe it. The doubt lies with statement 1, and the dispute note explains it.
Key facts
- Being Indian by Pavan K. Varma was published by Viking in 2004.
- Being Indian is non-fiction about Indian identity and culture, not poetry.
- A UK edition followed in 2005 as "Being Indian: Inside the Real India".
- The Crossword Book Award was called the Vodafone Crossword Book Award from 2008 to 2010.
Study next
Common traps
- Accepting an award claim because the book is well known, without checking the category it names: poetry, for a prose book.
A real book is paired with two award claims, and the category each claim names is part of the test. Authors and awards also appear at 19 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.10, which asks which Sahitya Akademi winner wrote "Half the Night is Gone".
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.