RAS question
The Gavri folk drama of Rajasthan is performed for how many days after Raksha Bandhan?
Correct answer: (A) 40 days.
Gavri, the folk dance-drama of Rajasthan, is performed for forty days from the day after Raksha Bandhan.
Explanation
Gavri, also called Rai, is a ritual folk dance-drama associated with the Bhil community of southern Rajasthan. The key examination point is its calendar: it begins on the day after Raksha Bandhan, Bhadrapada Krishna Pratipada, and continues for forty days. The official Utsav page also describes Gavri as a dance-drama lasting forty days during the rainy season and says the ritual commences on the day following Raksha Bandhan. That is why option A is the only duration that matches the traditional timing. The open-air, monsoon-season setting is part of the same cultural context, but the asked fact is the forty-day period after Raksha Bandhan.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Twenty days is too short; Gavri's duration is forty days.
- (C) Sixty days overstates the ritual cycle; the duration is forty days from the day after Raksha Bandhan.
- (D) Ten days confuses Gavri with a much shorter observance, while the Gavri tradition runs for forty days in the rainy season.
Concept
This tests Rajasthan's folk theatre and tribal cultural traditions, especially the calendar-linked performance practices of the Bhil community. RAS repeatedly asks such facts because art-and-culture questions often turn on the performer community, season, place and duration of a folk form.