Art, Culture, Literature & Cinema: previous-year questions

Answer: (C) Olchiki

Ol Chiki (Ol Chemet) is the script of the Santhali language, devised in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu of Mayurbhanj (Odisha); it has 30 letters. Santhali, an Austroasiatic language of the Munda family spoken in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Assam, was added to the Eighth Schedule by the 92nd Amendment Act, 2003 together with Bodo, Dogri and Maithili, and West Bengal recognises it as an additional official language. Tirhuta (Mithilakshar) is the traditional script of Maithili and Devanagari is used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and others. Other tribal scripts: Warang Citi (Ho) and Tolong Siki (Kurukh, the language of the Oraons).

Answer: (A) Thiruvalluvar was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He wrote Tirukkural, a classical Tamil text of 1,330 short couplets (kurals).

Thiruvalluvar is the Tamil poet-philosopher who wrote the Tirukkural (Kural), 1,330 couplets arranged in 133 chapters of ten couplets each and grouped into three books: Aram (virtue), Porul (wealth and statecraft) and Inbam (love). It is a secular ethical work, often called the 'Tamil Veda', and has been translated into many languages. His 133-foot statue stands on a rock off Kanyakumari beside the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and Thiruvalluvar Day is observed in Tamil Nadu in January during Pongal. The other options are fabrications: the Chola kings who conquered Sri Lanka were Rajaraja I and Rajendra I, and he had nothing to do with Assamese literature.

Answer: (A) Nandikar, Ek Theke Baro

According to PSC's final key, the recent Bengali stage adaptation is 'Ek Theke Baro' ('One to Twelve', for the twelve jurors) by Nandikar. The story began as Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay 'Twelve Angry Men'; Sidney Lumet's 1957 film starred Henry Fonda, and Basu Chatterjee's Hindi version 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla' (1986) featured Pankaj Kapur. Nandikar, founded in Kolkata in 1960 by Ajitesh Bandopadhyay and long led by Rudraprasad Sengupta, is known for Bengali adaptations of world classics such as 'Tin Poyshar Pala' and 'Football', and for its annual National Theatre Festival. 'Rudali' (C) is a real and celebrated production of Usha Ganguli's group Rangakarmee, based on Mahasweta Devi's story; Sayak (B) is the group led by Meghnad Bhattacharya.

Answer: (B) Jyotirindranath Tagore

The Bharatiya Sangit Samaj (Indian Sangita Samaj) was founded in Calcutta in 1897 by Jyotirindranath Tagore, elder brother of Rabindranath and a playwright, composer and pioneer of Bengali musical notation, to promote music and drama. The tempting distractor is Raja Sourindro Mohun Tagore of the Pathuriaghata family, the musicologist who founded the Bengal Music School (1871) and the Bengal Academy of Music (1881). Rajanikanta Sen ('Kantakabi') and Dwijendralal Roy (composer of 'Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara') were celebrated song-writers of the Swadeshi period, counted with Rabindranath, Atulprasad Sen and Nazrul Islam among the five great poet-composers of Bengali song, but neither founded this Samaj.

Answer: (D) Gateway of India

The Gateway of India in Mumbai (completed in 1924 to commemorate the 1911 visit of King George V; architect George Wittet) is a protected monument but is not on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The other three are inscribed: Ellora Caves (1983), Kaziranga National Park (1985) and the Churches and Convents of Goa (1986). Mumbai's World Heritage Sites are the Elephanta Caves, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles. India's 44th site, the Maratha Military Landscapes, was added in 2025. West Bengal has three: Sundarbans National Park (1987), the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (1999, part of the Mountain Railways of India) and Santiniketan (2023).

No option is correct as printed — this question is disputed. WBPSC awarded the mark to all candidates: the 'first film theatre of India' is not clearly any listed person's work (usually credited to J. F. Madan, not an option), so the question has no clear correct option.

The question has no single settled answer among the options. The Lumière Brothers only held the first film show in India (Watson's Hotel, Bombay, 1896) and did not build a theatre, Dadasaheb Phalke made the first Indian feature film, and Dhirendra Nath Ganguly was an early Bengali filmmaker; the first permanent cinema hall is usually credited to J. F. Madan's Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta (1907). The Commission therefore awarded the mark to all candidates.

Answer: (C) Spain

Pablo Picasso, co-founder of Cubism, was born in Málaga, Spain, in 1881. He spent much of his working life in France, which makes (B) the tempting wrong option, but he was Spanish.

Answer: (C) Dada Saheb Phalke

Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra (1913), India's first full-length, fully indigenous silent feature film. The Lumière Brothers only screened foreign films in Bombay in 1896, and Dhirendra Nath Ganguly's films came later.

Answer: (D) Gauri

Kavitha Lankesh's 'Gauri', a documentary on the murdered journalist Gauri Lankesh, won the Best Long Documentary award at the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal in 2023. The other titles were not that award's winner.

Answer: (A) Pather Panchali

In FIPRESCI-India's 2022 poll of critics, Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955) was voted the best Indian film of all time. Ankur, Anand and Mughal-e-Azam are celebrated films but did not top that poll.

Answer: (D) Rajatarangini

Kalhana wrote the Rajatarangini (c. 1148 CE), a verse chronicle of the kings of Kashmir. Harshacharita is by Banabhatta, Arthashastra by Kautilya, and Indika by Megasthenes.

Answer: (C) Kisan Kanya

Kisan Kanya (1937), produced by Ardeshir Irani, was the first indigenously made colour film in India. Alam Ara (1931) was the first talkie, and Pather Panchali and Devdas were black-and-white films.

Answer: (C) Rich Like Us

Nayantara Sahgal won the Sahitya Akademi Award for English in 1986 for her novel Rich Like Us, set during the Emergency. A Time to be Happy and The Day in Shadow are her earlier novels that did not win it.

Answer: (C) Ramachandra Guha

Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (2007). Romila Thapar writes on ancient Indian history, and the other names are not its author.

Answer: (C) Gora

Gora (1910) is one of Rabindranath Tagore's major novels, about identity and nationalism. Durgeshnandini is by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Ganadevata by Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay.

Answer: (A) Alama Ara

Alam Ara (1931), directed by Ardeshir Irani, was India's first sound film. Raja Harishchandra (1913) was the first Indian silent feature film, and Pundalik (1912) was an earlier silent film.

Answer: (A) Sunil Khilnani

The Idea of India (1997) was written by political scientist Sunil Khilnani. Kiran Nagarkar is a novelist (Cuckold) and Shiv K. Kumar a poet, neither of whom wrote it.

Answer: (C) Mumbai

Khadi Fest 2022, organised by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) to mark Gandhi Jayanti, was inaugurated in Mumbai in October 2022 by the Union MSME Minister, Narayan Rane, and was held after a gap of two years. KVIC is a statutory body set up in 1957 under the KVIC Act, 1956; it works under the Ministry of MSME and its headquarters is in Mumbai, where the Fest is held every year. Do not confuse it with the "Khadi Utsav" on the Sabarmati riverfront at Ahmedabad (August 2022), where 7,500 women spun the charkha together.

Answer: (C) Vivek Agnihotri

'The Kashmir Files' (released March 2022), on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in 1990, was written and directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri and starred Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi. It later won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration at the 69th National Film Awards. Agnihotri also made 'The Tashkent Files' (2019).

Answer: (D) Santoor

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (died 10 May 2022) raised the santoor, a hammered string folk instrument of Kashmir, to the status of a classical concert instrument; he received the Padma Vibhushan in 2001. With flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia he composed film music as 'Shiv-Hari' (Silsila, Chandni, Lamhe). Instrument-artist pairs for the other options: sitar with Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan, sarod with Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan, flute with Hariprasad Chaurasia and Pannalal Ghosh.