Pran got his first role in Dalsukh M. Pancholi's Punjabi film "Yamla Jat" (1940) because of an accidental meeting with writer Wali Mohammad Wali at a shop in Lahore. Directed by Moti B. Gidwani, the film featured Noor Jehan and Durga Khote. This was followed by small roles in the film "Chaudhary" and "Khajanchi", both in 1941. Pancholi cast him again in "Khandaan" (1942), which was Pran's first Hindi-language film. It featured him as a romantic hero, opposite Noor Jehan, who had acted with him in "Yamla Jat" as a child artist. In "Khandaan", she was under 15 years old and compensated for the difference in their heights in close-up shots by standing on top of bricks. In the pre-partition era, director Gidwani cast Pran in more films like "Kaise Kahoon" (1945) and "Khamosh Nigahen" (1946).