Bengal is Brilliant Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bangladesh and India

Bengal is on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, with the Himalayan Mountains bordering it to the north. Bengal has been part of many empires, including the Gupta Empire and the Pala Empire. In modern times, it is split between the state of West Bengal, India, whose population is mostly Hindu, and the country of Bangladesh, a democratic republic with a population predominantly Muslim. (Bangladesh literally means "the nation of Bengal" in the Bengali language.) Principal cities of the region include Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Chittagong, Dhaka, and Khulna.

Answer: Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is likely the Bengali author/playwright/novelist best-known to the Western world. He has had enormous influence in both West Bengal and Bangladesh in defining Bengali culture, and he is the author of the national anthems for both India and Bangladesh (which are in Bengali).

His work paved the way for the Bengali language to be used in everyday speech in modern times. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, the first Asian person ever to do so. Tagore was part of the Bengali Renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period of flourishing and modernization of Bengali language and literature that made Bengali works more prominent in the world arena.

Answer: smaller

Where the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers converge, you'll find the largest mangrove forests in the world and the Bengal tiger. Although the Bengal tiger is one of the biggest wild cats in the world, the Siberian tiger, also called the Amur tiger, is heavier and taller than the Bengal by about 150 pounds and 2-4 inches. The Bengal tiger is often called the royal Bengal tiger, and it is the emblematic animal of both the state of West Bengal, India and the republic of Bangladesh.

Answer: Terra cotta

There is not a lot of stonework in Bengal, not rich in stone but better equipped for wood and terra cotta (or "terracotta") bricks, which are extremely durable. The Bengali curved roofs, which drain rainwater well, were adopted throughout the architectures of India and the Islamic world. Bengali architecture often boasts elaborately molded terracotta plaques.

The Sixty Dome Mosque of Bangladesh, built during the Bengal Sultanate (14th-16th centuries) by Ulugh Khan Jahan, the governor of the Sundarbans, is considered one of the most impressive monuments of the entire Indian subcontinent.

Answer: shari

Often spelled "sari" or "saree", the shari is wrapped around the waist and draped over the shoulder, exposing a little bit of the midriff. Under this a person usually wears a short bodice called a choli (that also does not cover the midriff), and a long skirt called a gagra or lehenga. This traditional couture is not limited to Bengal but has long been worn throughout the entire Indian subcontinent. It may have originated way back in 2800 BCE, and ancient Sanskrit poems describe women wearing the shari and similar garments. There are about 80 different ways to wear this iconic apparel.

The social reformer Jnanadanandini Devi, sister-in-law to writer Rabindranath Tagore, introduced the less cumbersome Parsi way of draping the shari, popular in Mumbai, to Bengal and promoted it in advertisements in the local newspapers. This was at a time when Bengali women were first starting to venture outdoors from the inner houses to which they had been historically relegated, and the Parsi style, also called gol saree, began to be more favored than the traditional Bengali atpoure shari. The Parsis are an ethno-religious group who practice Zoroastrianism and who emigrated from Persia to India during the Muslim Conquest of Persia (636-651 CE).

Many of the leading fashion designers of South Asia, including Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Bibi Russell and Rina Latif, have come from Bengal.

Answer: True

Unlike the rest of Indian subcontinent, food in the Bengali tradition is served in a series of courses brought sequentially to the table, rather than all at once. The favorite foods of Bengali cuisine are fish and rice, whence the proverb: "Fish and rice make a Bengali." Vegetables and lentils are also important.

There are variations in the major cities of Bengal, such as the dishes heavy in animal fats and dairy products of Chittagong, the paneer (cheese) dishes of Kolkata street vendors, and the mild spices of the tender beef, lamb, and yogurt dishes of Dhaka (where ghee was expensive so cooks had to make the food melt in the mouth naturally).

Answer: Kabaddi

Kabaddi, a sort of tag or tackle game (with no ball, just the tackling), was invented in Bengal during the Vedic period (c.1500 - c.500 BCE) and spread throughout the Indian subcontinent, and beyond, though generally at the level of villages. Some believe that the Hindu god Krishna once played the game.

In the twentieth century, kabaddi was a demonstration sport in the Olympics in 1936 and became part of the Indian Olympic games in 1938, and it eventually rose beyond the villages to international competition, governed by the International Kabaddi Federation.

Modern teams have seven people, and there are separate matches for men and women.

Answer: the theory of gravity

In addition to these ancient achievements, Bengal re-emerged as a leader in science and engineering in the Indian sub-continent during the British Raj and continued to produce top scientists well into the 21st century. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was a pioneer in the study of radio waves and microwave optics before turning to plant science (and he is also the father of Bengali science fiction). And while he is not he same Bose for which the audio electronics giant Bose Corporation was named, the company was founded by MIT academic and engineer Amar Bose, the American-born son of a Bengali Hindu named Noni Gopal Bose, who happened to be an Indian independence revolutionary once imprisoned for his fight to free India. Fazlur Rahman Khan was a Bangladeshi-American engineer who became known as the father of tubular designs, which revolutionized the construction of skyscrapers.

Answer: ektara

Also called an iktar, a yaktaro, a gopichant, and many other names, the one-stringed ektara appears in the traditional music of what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and even as far as Egypt. It is especially prominent in the music of Bengali minstrels known as Bauls, who represent not only a musical tradition but also a religious tradition that blends Hinduism and Islam.

The Bauls greatly influenced the poetry and music of the great Rabindranath Tagore. You play the ektara by holding it upright and gripping and plucking the string with the same hand. You can lower the pitch by compressing the neck.

The ektara comes in three sizes for soprano, tenor, and bass ranges.

Answer: Norah Jones

Geethali Norah Jones Shankar was born in 1979 in Manhattan, New York to concert producer Sue Jones and musician Ravi Shankar of Bengal, who were never married. Taking the stage name Norah Jones, the talented performer began as a lounge singer performing jazz music.

Her first studio album was 'Come Away with Me' (2002) which won Grammy Awards and reached the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard 200. In 2011 she collaborated with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and country music singer Willie Nelson for the album 'Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles'.