Indian Theatre: Folk theatre and puppetry

Three pairs are correct. Maach is the musical theatre of Malwa in Madhya Pradesh; Bhand Pather is the satirical theatre of Kashmir; Tamasha is the folk theatre of Maharashtra. Swang belongs to Haryana and its neighbourhood (with Rajasthan, western Uttar Pradesh and Malwa), not to Odisha, whose traditional theatres include Jatra and Prahlad Nataka.

Bidesia is the folk theatre of the Bhojpuri belt of Bihar (and adjoining eastern Uttar Pradesh). Its best-known exponent, Bhikhari Thakur (1887–1971), wrote and staged plays such as Bidesia on the pain of migration: the 'bidesi' husband who leaves for distant cities for work and the wife left at home. It also attacked social evils of the day. Jatra is Bengali, Bhaona Assamese and Prahlad Nataka Odia.

Veedhi Natakam ('street drama') is a traditional theatre of Andhra Pradesh. Talamaddale, the seated, costume-free form of Yakshagana, belongs to coastal Karnataka. Bayalata ('open-field play') is the general name for open-air folk drama in Karnataka, not Tamil Nadu, whose street theatre is Therukoothu.

Shumang Leela is the courtyard theatre of Manipur, and Bidesia is the Bhojpuri folk theatre of Bihar, associated with Bhikhari Thakur. Prahlad Nataka belongs to the Ganjam district of southern Odisha, not to West Bengal, whose signature folk theatre is Jatra.

Pandit Lakhmi Chand (1903–1945), remembered in Haryana as 'Surya Kavi', is the most celebrated poet-performer of Haryanvi Swang; Haryana's State university of performing and visual arts at Rohtak bears his name. Vithabai Narayangaonkar was a leading Tamasha artiste of Maharashtra and received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Tamasha in 1990. Gulab Bai of Kanpur was the pioneering woman performer of Nautanki, not of Kashmir's Bhand Pather.

Prahlad Nataka, the traditional theatre of Ganjam in southern Odisha, enacts the Puranic story of Prahlada and his rescue by Narasimha from his father Hiranyakashipu, with song, verse, masks and a raised stepped platform. Shumang Leela of Manipur takes up social and political issues of the day, usually with humour and satire. Bhaona presents the Vaishnava Ankiya Naats of Assam, whose stories come from the lives of Krishna and Rama, not the Buddha.

Bayalata (bayalu = open field, ata = play) is the umbrella term for Karnataka's open-air folk drama; Yakshagana itself is often described as a form of it. In north Karnataka the eastern branch (Mudalapaya) includes Doddata, the 'big play', and Sannata, the 'small play'. Doddata, prevalent in north-eastern Karnataka, is performed by non-professional rural artistes on festival occasions, not by hereditary temple troupes under royal patronage.

Bhavai is the folk drama of Gujarat, mixing narration, song, dance, farce and social satire, and long linked with festivals of the Mother Goddess such as Navaratri. Tradition regards Asait (Asaita Thakar) of Siddhpur, a fourteenth-century poet, as its father and credits him with 360 vesh. A show strings together independent playlets, each a vesh, and the bhungal, a long brass trumpet, is its signature instrument. Statement 2 describes Dashavatar of the Konkan and Goa.