Temporary habitats in the high-altitude pastures of Garhwal Himalayas are called:
- (a)Mait
- (b)Kharak
- (c)Khadu
- (d)Kharsal
Correct — B, Kharak.
The keyed answer is Kharak. Herders in Garhwal take sheep, goats and cattle up to the alpine pastures for the summer and bring them down before the snow returns. The rough huts they occupy in those pastures while the grazing lasts are the kharak — temporary habitats, lived in for one season rather than year-round.
The idea to carry away: the pasture is the bugyal; the hut on it is the kharak. The stem asks for the habitat, not the pasture, so the shelter word is the one that fits. The other three options name a home, an animal and a name to set aside.
- (a)Mait — Mait is a word about family, not pasture. In Garhwali and Kumaoni it means a woman's natal home — the house she grows up in until her marriage.
It is the right answer when a question asks what the Maiti movement is named after: the Chamoli-district campaign begun by Kalyan Singh Rawat, in which a sapling is planted at the bride's natal home during the wedding so that a tree stays behind when she leaves.
- (c)Khadu — Khadu is an animal, not a shelter. It is the Garhwali word for a ram.
It is the right answer when a question asks about the chausingya khadu, the naturally four-horned ram that walks at the head of the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, the Chamoli-district pilgrimage held once in twelve years.
- (d)Kharsal — Kharsal is the option to set aside. The similar-looking name worth knowing is Kharsali, a village near Yamunotri in Uttarkashi district.
That name is the right answer when a question asks for the winter seat of the Yamunotri deity: the idol of Yamuna is brought down to Kharsali around Diwali and returns to the temple in spring, and the temple's priests come from the village.
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of herders and their animals between pastures at different heights. In Garhwal the summer pastures are the bugyals — alpine meadows lying between the tree line and the snow line, snowbound in winter and green again from around April.
Because the meadow is usable for part of the year, the settlement on it is temporary too. Kharak is the local name for that seasonal shelter: a hut in the high pasture where the herder stays while the flock grazes, abandoned when the animals move down.
General Studies Paper-I of this examination draws on Uttarakhand's own geography and culture, and the working vocabulary of hill life sits inside that: the meadow (bugyal), the shelter on it (kharak), the animal grazed there (khadu) and household words from the same villages (mait).
The seasonal cycle behind the word is the same one that takes Gujjar herders of Garhwal and Kumaon down to the Bhabar forests in winter and up to the bugyals in summer, and that Bhotiya, Sherpa and Kinnauri communities have followed across the Himalaya.
- Kharak is the Garhwali term for the temporary shelters herders occupy in high-altitude pastures during the summer grazing season.
- Bugyal is the Garhwali–Kumaoni word for an alpine meadow between the tree line and the snow line; quoted altitude bands run from roughly 2,500 m to 4,000 m.
- At Dayara Bugyal in Uttarkashi district, shepherds graze their animals through the summer and return to the foothills for winter.
- Gujjar herders of Garhwal and Kumaon spend winter in the dry Bhabar forests and move up to the bugyals in summer (NCERT Class IX, Pastoralists in the Modern World).
- Mait means a woman's natal home; the Maiti movement of Chamoli district, begun by Kalyan Singh Rawat, plants a sapling at the bride's natal home during the wedding.
- Kalyan Singh Rawat received the Padma Shri in 2020 in the field of Social Work (Uttarakhand).
- Khadu means a ram; a naturally four-horned ram, the chausingya khadu, leads the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, which is held once in twelve years.
- Kharsali, near Yamunotri in Uttarkashi district, hosts the idol of Yamuna in winter; the priests of the Yamunotri temple hail from this village.
Kharak is the shelter on the meadow; Mait is a home, Khadu an animal, and Kharsal a name to set aside.
- Reading 'habitats' as an ecology term and hunting for a biome or vegetation word; the stem is about where herders live, so the answer is a shelter word.
- Answering with the pasture instead of the shelter: bugyal is the meadow, kharak is the hut occupied on it.
- Kharak and Kharsal share a first syllable; the shelter term is Kharak, while Kharsali — the name Kharsal resembles — is a village near Yamunotri.
- Mait and Khadu belong to other question families, the Maiti movement and the Raj Jat's four-horned ram; a pasture question is not where they fit.
As a vocabulary item: a Garhwali or Kumaoni word is set against three other local words that look or sound similar, and the task is to attach the right meaning. The direction can be reversed — the meaning given and the word asked — or several words can be laid out as a match-the-following.
The same terms also arrive through their own stories: mait through the Maiti movement, khadu through the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, bugyal through named meadows and trekking routes.
No eligible match among this question's citable set.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Garhwali and Kumaoni languages, the word 'Mait', from which Uttarakhand's Maiti movement takes its name, refers to:
- (a)an alpine meadow
- (b)a woman's natal home
- (c)a temporary hut in a high pasture
- (d)a four-horned ram
Answerb — Mait is the home a girl grows up in until marriage, which is why the Maiti ritual plants a sapling there at the wedding.(a) is the bugyal, (c) is the kharak, and (d) is the chausingya khadu that leads the Nanda Devi Raj Jat.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The alpine meadows of Uttarakhand, lying between the tree line and the snow line and grazed by herders in summer, are locally known as:
- (a)Kharak
- (b)Khadu
- (c)Bugyal
- (d)Mait
Answerc — Bugyal is the Garhwali–Kumaoni word for the alpine meadow itself; Auli, Bedni and Dayara are named examples.(a) Kharak is the temporary hut on the meadow, not the meadow; (b) Khadu is a ram; (d) Mait is a woman's natal home.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Match List-I (Garhwali word) with List-II (meaning): A. Kharak B. Bugyal C. Khadu D. Mait 1. Alpine meadow 2. Ram 3. Temporary shelter in a high pasture 4. A woman's natal home
- (a)A-3, B-1, C-2, D-4
- (b)A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4
- (c)A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2
- (d)A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4
Answera — Kharak is the temporary shelter (3), bugyal the meadow (1), khadu the ram (2) and mait the natal home (4).(b) swaps the shelter and the meadow; (c) swaps the ram and the natal home; (d) makes kharak the ram and khadu the shelter.