In the coming two years he did eleven films, mostly stunt films, until Mehboob Khan's "Jagirdar" (1937), a commercially hit, established him as a musical force in the film industry. Soon many more independent assignments came his way, most notably, "300 Days and After", "Gramophone Singer", "Hum Tum Aur Woh", "Ek Hi Raasta", and Mehboob Khan's "Watan "(1938), "Alibaba" (1940), the classic, "Aurat" (1940), "Bahen" (1941), before working with him again, in "Roti" (1942), for which he also credited with the story and concept, and which featured many songs by film's actress, Akhtaribai Faizabadi (Begum Akhtar), though they were deleted due to a contractual conflict (the music was recorded with HMV, while she was in contract with Megaphone Gramophone Company). In following years he gave scores for Bombay Talkies films like "Jwar Bhata" (1944), Dilip Kumar’s debut film, and "Milan" (1946) also starring Dilip Kumar and directed by Nitin Bose, who made it in Bengali, as "Naukadubi".