No stars, ₹2-crore budget, ₹200 crore at the box office: The ‘Hanuman Ansh’ heist

Big budgets, star power and massive publicity do not guarantee a hit in the film industry. Films that raise enormous expectations can crash spectacularly, while those that barely register before release can turn into runaway successes. It's a pattern that has played out across languages and generations. Hanuman Ansh, a Hindi film that arrived with little buzz, is the latest to spring that surprise.

Dr Vishal Chaturvedi may not be a familiar name in Bollywood, but he had a story he wanted to take beyond the pages of his book, ‘Divine Detour, That Changed My Life'. He believed a visual adaptation could take the memoir to a much wider audience. The idea eventually evolved into a three part film, with Hanuman Ansh as its first instalment.

The film tells the story of Neem Karoli Baba, a spiritual master and ardent devotee of Lord Hanuman. To understand a man who died in 1973 and bring his story to the screen, Vishal went beyond the usual research. He met people who had known Baba, visited places associated with him, studied books and dug deep into his life before filming began. The groundwork helped him piece together the man behind the spiritual legacy.

From Lakshman to Neem Karoli Baba
A lifelong devotee of Lord Hanuman, Neem Karoli Baba is widely believed by his followers to have been an incarnation of the deity. Set in pre Independence India, the film traces his journey from Lakshman Narayan Sharma, a young man devastated by his mother’s death and his father’s remarriage, to the spiritual master he would become. After leaving home in search of God, Lakshman travelled extensively, founded a Hanuman temple and embarked on a spiritual quest. Meditation transformed him, bringing revelations and extraordinary powers that shaped the legend of Neem Karoli Baba.

Those who knew him recount astonishing stories. A man who spent 22 years with Baba reportedly never saw him sleep. Baba was also said to have eaten as many as 17 times on some days. Then came the legendary train episode. During British rule, railway officials reportedly forced Baba off a train for travelling without a ticket. The train refused to move despite repeated attempts to restart it. The officials eventually apologised and agreed to his conditions, after which the train moved again, according to the account. Legend has it that a railway station was later built at the spot on Baba’s instructions.

The mystic who made service his religion
Neem Karoli Baba wrote no books, delivered no grand sermons, built no sprawling ashrams and never sought to create a following. Though an ardent devotee of Lord Hanuman, he belonged to no religion or organisation. Humanity was his faith. Baba believed a hungry person needed food, not lofty spiritual lectures. Feeding the hungry was, in essence, his idea of spirituality. He opposed personality worship and maintained that he was merely a medium. For him, serving humanity was serving God. He established community kitchens where people were fed without distinctions of caste, religion or nationality.

Steve Jobs, Dr Larry Brilliant, Daniel Goleman and Julia Roberts are among the well known figures to have drawn inspiration from him. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about visiting Baba’s samadhi and seeking his blessings. Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have also visited his ashram.That a mystic who died in the 1970s continues to influence people across the world remains perhaps the most remarkable part of his legacy.

No stars, no investors, just one man’s bet
The biggest challenge Vishal faced in turning Baba’s life into a film was making a Hindi feature on a shoestring budget of Rs 2 crore. Even a low budget regional film can cost more than Rs 7 crore. With no stars attached, finding investors was tougher still. So Vishal Chaturvedi put his own skin in the game. He turned producer under the Swayambhu Media Network banner and pulled together the film with financial support from several people.

The cast featured newcomers such as Shobhit Srivastava, Chandan Anand and Poornima Tiwari. The 2.5 hour feature got a theatrical release, but opened to little buzz and poor collections.Then word of mouth kicked in. The film caught fire and turned into a runaway success. Made for Rs 2 crore, it has crossed Rs 200 crore at the box office. The staggering return has made it one of Bollywood’s most profitable films and one of Indian cinema’s most remarkable low budget successes. While the makers peg the budget at Rs 2 crore, reports suggest the actual cost may have been even lower.

A surprise cast, a historic role
The actor originally cast as the lead fell ill and was bedridden during the first schedule. There was no time to wait. Worse, the team sensed the casting might not work in the film’s favour. The makers quickly auditioned Shobhinav Sathya, then the film’s second assistant director and cast him as Neem Karoli Baba. Almost overnight, he found himself with the historic task of bringing the mystic to life on screen.

Vishal had no great box office expectations. He only hoped the film would be recognised as a moving story that presented humanity as the essence of spirituality. There were no familiar stars, the director was not a known name and none of the usual period film spectacle: no flashy VFX or CGI, just a quiet, understated narrative. Vishal, reportedly, approached several people hoping to sell the film to an OTT platform and recover his investment. The response was brutal. Some even asked him to his face, “Who will take this?” To them, his reply was that “you know nothing about Hanuman Swami.”

Then came the break. A song from the film, sung by visually impaired boy Sunil Lodhi, went viral on social media. Around the same time, stories about Neem Karoli Baba began spreading. Posts on Facebook and Instagram claimed that Baba’s blessings had transformed the lives of Apple founder Steve Jobs and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. Vishal says these were not mere rumours but accounts documented by the people concerned over the years.

Whatever the case, the stories caught fire. People began heading to theatres to discover Neem Karoli Baba, the mystic believed to have received Lord Hanuman’s blessings.The film opened in just 40 theatres, then expanded to 250 and eventually 2,000. With no overseas release yet, its worldwide collection stands at Rs 205 crore. ‘Hanuman Ansh’ has now beaten the record of The Kashmir Files, made on a Rs 15 crore budget. Its journey is also going global, with Hombale Films, the production house behind blockbusters such as ‘Kantara,’ acquiring its worldwide release rights. The film is now set to be dubbed into regional languages, including Malayalam, giving this starless spiritual drama a much wider audience.