पंछी

A 1944 social melodrama directed by Barkat Mehra, scored by the Lahore-trained composer Pandit Amarnath, with lead players Manorama and Zahur Raja. Like most films of the wartime years its narrative survives only in fragments, but its soundtrack — built around the voices of Zohrabai Ambalewali and Zeenat Begum — endures through gramophone records.

The ten-song score was written by the lyricist pair Manohar Sehrai and Akhtar Chughtai and composed by Pandit Amarnath. Zohrabai Ambalewali carries the bulk of the load — including 'Aye Dil Mujhe Ab Le Chal' and 'Tum Chhod Gaye Mujhko Piya' — while Zeenat Begum lends the lullaby 'Aa Ja Ri Nindiya' and 'Unhone Mohabbat Ki Duniya'. The style is rooted in the thumri-and-ghazal-inflected light classical idiom typical of Lahore composers of the period.

Panchhi is one of the films through which Pandit Amarnath — eldest of the three Lahore-based composer brothers — extended his reputation in the mid-1940s. The score pairs him with two of the era's most distinctive female voices, Zohrabai Ambalewali and Zeenat Begum, both then at the height of their pre-Partition popularity.