सहेली

A 1942 Hindi social drama directed by S. M. Yusuf, notable as the film with which the singer-actress Rattan Bai branched out into production, starring opposite the Bengali-trained matinee idol Pahari Sanyal. Built around themes of friendship and devotion implied by its title — Saheli, the female companion — the picture was carried by Bashir Khan Dehlvi's score and Waheed Qureshi's verse, with Rattan Bai herself voicing several of its songs.

The score is the work of Bashir Khan Dehlvi, with all lyrics by Waheed Qureshi. The seven documented songs lean on the intimate, ghazal-adjacent register typical of early-1940s social dramas — slow-to-medium tempo, harmonium-and-tabla led, voice forward — with Rattan Bai handling the bulk of the female numbers and Pahari Sanyal taking the male and duet pieces.

Rattan Bai's move into production with Saheli placed her among a small cohort of women shaping their own films in the studio era. Pahari Sanyal, who had built his name at New Theatres in Calcutta, brought a different acting register to the project, and Pramila — later India's first Miss India — appeared in the role of Shahzadi.

Saheli marks a rare instance from the early 1940s of a leading female playback voice and screen presence stepping behind the camera as a producer. Rattan Bai — already established as a singer-actress of the gramophone era — used the film to assert creative control, and the soundtrack preserves her voice in a body of work that has otherwise been thinly documented in standard filmographies.

Like many films of the period, Saheli survives chiefly through its songs and the memory of its performers rather than a viewable print. It remains a footnote-worthy entry in the careers of Rattan Bai, Pahari Sanyal and composer Bashir Khan Dehlvi, and a small marker of women's authorship in 1940s Hindi cinema.