SSC
Bhupen Hazarika was popularly known as:
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Answer: Option A — Bard of the Brahmaputra
Detailed Solution
Explanation
Dr. Bhupen Hazarika (1926-2011) was a singer, composer, lyricist, poet and filmmaker from Assam. He is popularly known as the "Bard of the Brahmaputra" and as "Sudhakantha" (the one with a nectar-like voice), because his songs celebrated the life, culture and people of Assam and the land along the river Brahmaputra.
Bhupen Hazarika was born in Sadiya, Assam. He sang his first song for an Assamese film as a child, after he was noticed by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and Bishnu Prasad Rabha, the great cultural figures of Assam. He studied at the Banaras Hindu University and later earned a PhD in mass communication from Columbia University in New York, where he was influenced by the American singer and activist Paul Robeson. His songs dealt with themes such as humanity, brotherhood, social justice, the lives of ordinary people and the beauty of Assam, and they were sung in Assamese, Bengali and Hindi. His famous songs include "Bistirno Parore" (adapted in Hindi as "Ganga Behti Ho Kyun"), "Manuhe Manuhar Babe" and "Dil Hoom Hoom Kare" from the Hindi film "Rudaali" (1993), for which he composed the music. He also directed films. He received the Padma Shri (1977), the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1992), the Padma Bhushan (2001) and the Padma Vibhushan (2012, after his death). In 2019, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously. The Dhola-Sadiya Bridge over the Lohit river in Assam, one of the longest bridges in India, has been named the Bhupen Hazarika Setu.
Why not the other options?
- ✗Nightingale of India is the title of Sarojini Naidu.
- ✗Ghazal King is the title of Jagjit Singh.
- ✗Rupkonwar is the title of Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, another great cultural figure of Assam.
💡 Exam tip
Link Bhupen Hazarika with the titles "Bard of the Brahmaputra" and "Sudhakantha", the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1992), the Bharat Ratna (2019) and the Bhupen Hazarika Setu.💬 Discussions on this question
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Music & Musical Instruments — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Music & Musical Instruments, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers Indian classical music, its two main traditions (Hindustani and Carnatic), gharanas, ragas and talas, folk music styles, and the musical instruments of India along with the artists who are famous for playing them. It also includes the four classes of instruments: string (tata), wind (sushira), percussion (avanaddha) and solid (ghana). Exam questions usually pair an instrument with its maestro, such as the sitar with Pandit Ravi Shankar, the shehnai with Ustad Bismillah Khan or the santoor with Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. Other common questions ask about the origin of a gharana, the instrument a folk style uses, or the class an instrument belongs to. Making a two-column list of instruments and artists is the quickest way to revise. Practise the music and musical instruments questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.