Anu Malik’s return to Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2026 as a special judge for a few weeks placed him beside Kumar Sanu, and the pairing quickly became a compact retrospective of how 1990s Hindi film soundtracks were made. The season also features Shankar Mahadevan, Javed Ali and Neeti Mohan as judges, with Shreyas Talpade hosting.
Starting out in a crowded composers’ room
Malik recalled beginning around age 18 or 19, when R D Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji were the dominant names in film music. In that landscape, simply getting one song recorded was a significant achievement. The detail matters because it shows how concentrated the Hindi film music economy was: a handful of established composers controlled the room, and newcomers had to work hard for even a single opening.
A 100-piece orchestra and a Baazigar memory
The episode’s 100-piece orchestra took Malik back to the scale of 1990s recording sessions. Seeing Kumar Sanu in that setting brought back Baazigar O Baazigar, the song associated with the 1993 film Baazigar. A young contestant from Maharashtra added another layer by performing Kali Kali Aankhen, also linked to the same film.
Why the moment matters
This is Malik’s fourth stint as a judge on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. The appearance does more than fill a chair: it gives a new generation of contestants and viewers a direct line to the repertoire and working practices of 1990s playback music.
- It restores the scale of the decade: a 100-piece orchestra instead of a bedroom studio.
- It ties current performances to specific film songs such as Baazigar O Baazigar and Kali Kali Aankhen.
- It foregrounds a standard Malik repeated: emotion over pure technique.
Malik said he had fond memories of the show and enjoyed meeting young singers with passion and potential. He added that singing was not simply about technical skills such as sur and taal, but also about “the emotion a performer brings to a song and the way it makes listeners feel.” That framing is the real inheritance of the segment: film songs are remembered because they carry feeling, not because they are flawless.
What to watch for
The 2026 season continues to give aspiring singers a large platform, with grand performances, a 360-degree stage and more than 100 musicians and chorus performers. For viewers, the Malik-Sanu reunion works as a short filmed retrospective of a decade whose songs still circulate in reels, wedding playlists and reality-show auditions.
Source: EasternEye
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