आँख में लालिया

'Aankh Me Laliya' is one of the eight songs from Bahadur (1944), Master Bhagwan's Jagriti Pictures action-adventure feature. The title image — laliya, the redness or flush in the eyes — is a familiar romantic conceit of Hindustani film and folk poetry. Penned by Ehsan Rizvi and set by Ram Chitalkar (C. Ramchandra), it sits among the lighter, romantic numbers of the film's eight-song programme.

The music is by Ram Chitalkar (C. Ramchandra), composed during his early-1940s apprenticeship with Bhagwan Dada that began on Sukhi Jeevan (1942). A romantic number of this kind in a 1944 Bombay film would typically rest on a melody-led tune carried by harmonium and tabla, with a gentle dholak pulse — the modest instrumentation of the wartime studio.