पत राखो गिरधारी

'Pat Raakho Giradhaari' is the devotional centrepiece of Paapi (1943), a bhajan addressed to Krishna as Giridhari (the lifter of Govardhan). It is one of the few songs in the film with a documented singer — Zeenat Begum, a leading female voice of the pre-Partition Lahore studios — set by composer Pandit Amarnath to lyrics by Aziz Kashmiri. The title invokes the classic bhakti motif of surrendering one's honour to divine protection.

Pandit Amarnath, working in the Lahore-tradition idiom of the early 1940s, sets the bhajan in a slow, prayerful tempo built around harmonium and sustained tabla, the texture leaving room for Zeenat Begum's unhurried, supplicating phrasing. The composition follows the devotional template of the period — melody-first, restrained ornamentation, the voice carrying the appeal.