कब तक निराश की अंधियारी

'Kab Tak Niraas Ki Andhiyaari' from New Theatres' Doctor (1941) is a Pankaj Mullick solo, composed by him and written by the film's lyricist team of Arzoo Lakhnavi and A. H. Shor. Its theme — how long must the darkness of despair last when the world is full of light — fits the film's social-reform spirit, in which a doctor brings hope and progress to a village. The song is among the several numbers from Doctor that became lasting favourites of Mullick's listeners.

A characteristically restrained New Theatres setting — voice forward, accompaniment spare. The medium tempo and rising melodic phrases lend the song its quality of moving from gloom toward hope, mirroring the lyric's argument.

The lyric poses a rhetorical question — how long must despair's darkness endure — and answers it with the image of the world's brightening light, a sentiment characteristic of the progressive, reformist mood of 1940s socially-conscious cinema.

The song supports the film's central arc, in which the protagonist doctor confronts the village's poverty, disease and superstition with the conviction that knowledge and hope can dispel them. Mullick performs it in his own voice as the singer-actor lead.

One of the evergreen songs of Doctor, a film remembered for a soundtrack in which almost every number endured. It reflects Mullick's gift for marrying simple, hopeful lyrics to an unforced, voice-centred melody.