Anil Kapoor Turns Qawwal for 'India Ke Top 1%': First-Ever Sufi Performance With Ganesh Acharya's Choreography

Mumbai, Sept. 10: Anil Kapoor has spent four decades on screen doing everything from tapori grit to late-night talk show hosting.
Now, at 69, the actor has added an unexpected credit to that résumé: qawwal.
Star Plus on Tuesday unveiled a qawwali-style music video built around its upcoming reality show, "India Ke Top 1% – The Anil Kapoor Show."
It marks the first time Kapoor has performed the centuries-old Sufi devotional form on camera.
The track's hook line — "Baat Khatki Toh Jeet Pakki" — is already being used as the show's calling card.
Choreographing the number is Ganesh Acharya, the National Award-winning dancer-director known for giving stars his trademark larger-than-life moves.
For Kapoor, the shoot was less about adding another first to his filmography and more about matching the show's personality.
"India Ke Top 1% is a celebration of how differently people think, and the Qawwali captures the show's vibrant, energetic and entertaining spirit," he said in a statement.
He added that the track's "infectious energy reflects the excitement that viewers will experience as 100 contestants come together to test their everyday thinking on one grand stage."
The qawwali itself, he admitted, took him into unfamiliar territory.
"Performing Qawwali for the first time was a new and exciting experience for me, and I wanted my performance to complement the show's distinctive personality," Kapoor said.
He credited Acharya with cracking that code.
"Ganesh Acharya understood that perfectly and brought his signature flair to the choreography, making the entire experience even more enjoyable," he said.
The video arrives a week after the show's teaser set social media buzzing.
It is the latest salvo in a launch campaign produced by Banijay Asia that has leaned heavily on music as an identity marker.
The show underneath the anthem is an Indian adaptation of "The 1% Club," a logic-and-observation format that has already run in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Australia, Mexico, the US and other markets.
The premise is disarmingly simple: 100 contestants face 13 rounds of questions rooted in everyday life, playful riddles and lateral thinking rather than textbook knowledge.
Each player starts with ₹1 lakh in hand.
Here comes the twist — every wrong answer or slip-up does not cost the contestant alone; it feeds a collective prize pot that can swell up to ₹1 crore.
The game, in other words, punishes errors by rewarding everyone else.
Kapoor, who hosted the third season of "Bigg Boss OTT" and famously played a game-show host in "Slumdog Millionaire," said mock shoots had already convinced him this was one of his most exciting projects.
His pitch to viewers is participatory: families at home should guess, compete and laugh along with the 100 on stage.
"From dada-dadi and saas-bahu to the youngest members, the entire family will be guessing, competing and laughing together," he said.
On the fiction side, Kapoor was last seen this year in the action drama "Subedaar," which streamed on Prime Video.
Whether the qawwali becomes a chartbuster or a curiosity, it has done its primary job — making a logic puzzle show feel like a celebration.
The real test begins on September 19, when 100 ordinary Indians try to prove they think better than 99 per cent of everyone else.
The show premieres at 8 PM on Star Plus and will stream simultaneously on JioHotstar.