गेहूँ के फुलके खिला दे

'Gehoon Ke Phulke Khila De' is one of the documented songs of Insaan (1944), composed by Gyan Dutt with lyrics by Pandit Indra and sung by Zohrabai Ambalewali, the powerful-voiced female star of 1940s film music. On the surface a homely, playful request to be fed simple wheat flatbreads, the song is remembered for cloaking a stinging comment on the food scarcity and government policy of the war years inside an apparently innocent domestic number — a favoured strategy of pre-Independence lyricists working under colonial censorship.

Gyan Dutt sets the lyric to a relaxed, conversational tune carried by Zohrabai Ambalewali's robust, grainy timbre — the kind of voice that could land a comic-satirical line with deadpan force. The arrangement leans on the standard 1940s palette of dholak and harmonium, keeping the rhythm light and folk-flavoured so that the song reads as everyday domestic banter even as the words bite.