आँख मिचौली

A 1942 Amar Pictures social musical directed by R. S. Choudhury, whose English title 'Blind Man's Bluff' echoes its playful, deception-and-disguise premise. The film is best remembered today as one of the early starring vehicles for a young Nalini Jaywant, who also lent her voice to most of its songs in the actor-singer tradition of the era.

Gyan Dutt's score for Aankh Michouli sits squarely in the light, folk-and-thumri-tinged idiom of early-1940s Bombay social musicals — songs built around simple, hummable mukhdas, dholak-and-harmonium textures, and the bright, forward voice of Nalini Jaywant. The title song 'Aankh Michauli Aao Sakhi Khelen', a duet for Nalini Jaywant and Rajkumari with chorus, frames the film's game-of-hide-and-seek conceit in musical form.

An early-career landmark for Nalini Jaywant, who both acted and sang the bulk of the soundtrack — a vivid example of the pre-playback actor-singer convention still common in 1942. The score by Gyan Dutt drew on lyricists Pandit Indra, Satyakam Sharma and Shatir Ghaznavi, with additional female voices from Rajkumari, Leela Sawant and Sumati Trilokekar.