आई दिवाली आई दिवाली

'Aayi Diwali Aayi Diwali' is the festival song of Rattan, sung by Zohrabai Ambalewali. Diwali songs were a recurring fixture of 1940s Hindi cinema, and Naushad uses the occasion both for celebratory colour and for the poignant contrast between the festive world outside and the heroine's longing within — a tension that runs through the whole album.

Naushad gives the number a brisk, lamp-lit lilt — handclap-like percussion and a bright melodic line that carries the festival's energy — while leaving Zohrabai's voice room to shade the celebration with wistfulness. It is an early instance of his gift for the festive set-piece that he would refine across the next decade.

A Diwali lyric operates within a well-established festive template: the return of light after darkness, lamps and crackers, households united in celebration. D.N. Madhok — who wrote the story, screenplay, dialogues, and all songs for Rattan — structures this number as an announcement and greeting ('Aayi Diwali, Aayi Diwali': Diwali has come), an incantatory repetition that marks the arrival of the festival in sound before image. The documented mood classification for this song — Celebratory / Nostalgic / Bittersweet — suggests that Madhok counterpoints the festive surface with an undercurrent of longing. This was a common device of 1940s film songs: the festival provides the occasion for a character to feel her absence or her beloved's absence more sharply, the communal joy heightening rather than consoling private grief. Full lyrics are withheld (D.N. Madhok d.1982); this analysis draws on the title's incantatory structure and the documented mood assignments.

Rattan (1944) — directed by M. Sadiq, produced by Abdul Rashid Kardar for Navin Pictures — was the highest-grossing Hindi film of 1944. Festival songs were a recurring structural feature of 1940s Hindi cinema, serving both commercial and narrative functions: they provided a change of pace within the soundtrack, created opportunities for group or solo performance, and anchored the story in the Indian festive calendar. 'Aayi Diwali Aayi Diwali' is Zohrabai Ambalewali's festive number within Rattan's soundtrack, following the pattern of the other Zohrabai Ambalewali songs in the film in using the occasion for a dual emotional statement — celebratory on the surface, shot through with the heroine's underlying longing. Naushad, who was familiar with northern UP festive music from his Lucknow childhood, was adept at this kind of emotionally layered festival arrangement, and the Rattan Diwali song is an early example of a festive set-piece technique he would refine extensively in later decades.

Diwali songs became a staple of Hindi cinema from the silent era onward, and Rattan's contribution to the tradition is part of a longer history. Naushad's career would produce several more celebrated festival songs in later decades — most notably in the Mehboob Khan films of the 1950s. Zohrabai Ambalewali, who sang 'Aayi Diwali', is remembered primarily for her contralto tone-colour and for the five Rattan songs that became cult recordings: 'Ankhiyan Milake', 'Oh Janewale Balamwa', 'Rimjhim Barse Badarwa', 'Sawan Ke Badlo' and 'Aayi Diwali' are the five songs from the film's soundtrack that were most frequently recalled and revived. The Rattan soundtrack grossed over Rs 3 lakhs in record sales in its first year, a commercial record for the era.