Chitti Babu is associated with which musical instrument?

Explanation

Chitti Babu (1936-1996) was one of the most famous veena players of Carnatic music in the 20th century. He was known for his sweet, melodious style and for making the veena popular with a wide audience.

Chitti Babu was born in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. He began learning the veena at a very young age and gave his first public performance at the age of 12. He trained under the veena master Emani Sankara Sastry, who was known for his own distinctive style. Chitti Babu moved to Chennai and worked for some time as a veena player in the Tamil and Telugu film industry, where he played in the background music of many films. He later became a leading concert artist and developed his own style of veena playing, known for its clarity, sweetness and lightness of touch, which became known as the "Chitti Babu style". He also composed many pieces of music for the veena and recorded several popular albums. He performed widely in India and abroad. He received many honours for his contribution to Carnatic music.

The Saraswati veena is the traditional stringed instrument of Carnatic music. It has a large wooden body (traditionally made from jackfruit wood), 24 fixed frets, a smaller resonator near the top of the neck, four main strings for playing and three side strings for rhythm and drone. It is associated with the goddess Saraswati. Other famous veena players include S. Balachander, Emani Sankara Sastry, E. Gayathri and Jayanthi Kumaresh. The towns of Bobbili (Andhra Pradesh) and Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) are famous for making veenas.

Why not the other options?

Flute is linked with T.R. Mahalingam and N. Ramani.

Mridangam is linked with Palghat Mani Iyer and Umayalpuram Sivaraman.

Nadaswaram is linked with T.N. Rajarathinam Pillai and Sheik Chinna Moulana.