Ajit Merchant was a music director active in Gujarati and Hindi films from the late 1940s to the 1960s. He started off as a theater artist and then moved to radio before becoming a full fledged music director. The Gujarati song that catapulted him to fame was "Taari Aankh No Afini" ("Divadandi", 1949) sung by Dilip Dholakia. This song, popular in Gujarat to this day, is said to be the inspiration for Shankar - Jaikishan's "Mera Joota Hai Japani" ("Shree 420", 1955). In recent years, an old composition of his gained popularity when Jagjit Singh used it for the song "Raat Khamosh Hai" ("Muntazir", 2004) as a tribute to him.