Bageshwari Qamar is known as one of India's first women players of which instrument?

Explanation

Bageshwari Qamar is known as one of the first women to take up the shehnai as a professional performer in India. The shehnai had traditionally been played only by men, and her achievement opened the way for other women in this field.

Bageshwari Qamar learnt the shehnai within her family, which had a tradition of shehnai playing, and she performed at concerts, festivals and on radio. She became known as a pioneer, because very few women had ever played the shehnai in public, and her work encouraged more women to learn wind instruments. Her career is often mentioned as an example of women breaking into areas of classical music that were long reserved for men.

The shehnai is a double-reed wind instrument of North India. It has a wooden tube that widens towards the end, a metal bell, finger holes, and a double reed at the top, through which the player blows. Playing the shehnai requires great breath control, and players often use circular breathing to keep the sound going without a break. The shehnai is regarded as an auspicious instrument (mangal vadya) and is traditionally played at weddings, temples and festivals. In the Indian classification of instruments, it is a sushira vadya (wind instrument). Its South Indian counterpart is the nadaswaram.

Ustad Bismillah Khan (1916-2006) of Varanasi made the shehnai a classical concert instrument and received the Bharat Ratna in 2001. Other famous shehnai players include Ali Ahmad Hussain Khan, Pandit Anant Lal, Pandit Daya Shankar and Pandit S. Ballesh.

Other women who became pioneers on instruments traditionally played by men include Annapurna Devi (surbahar), Sukanya Ramgopal (ghatam) and Anuradha Pal (tabla).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Sitar is linked with Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan.
• ✗Tabla is linked with Zakir Hussain; Anuradha Pal is a well-known woman tabla player.
• ✗Santoor is linked with Shivkumar Sharma.