top of page

By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 4:53:13 pm

From Doctor to Box-Office Disruptor

Vishal Chaturvedi has turned a deeply personal spiritual story into one of 2026’s biggest box-office surprises. In an industry where films routinely arrive with star salaries running into crores, lavish sets and multi-crore marketing campaigns, Hanuman Ansh is a striking anomaly. Made on a shoestring budget reportedly in the region of Rs. 2 crore, the ‘spiritual’ film opened last month to a modest box-office collection. Within weeks, however, audiences began taking a shine to the film with...

From Doctor to Box-Office Disruptor

Vishal Chaturvedi has turned a deeply personal spiritual story into one of 2026’s biggest box-office surprises. In an industry where films routinely arrive with star salaries running into crores, lavish sets and multi-crore marketing campaigns, Hanuman Ansh is a striking anomaly. Made on a shoestring budget reportedly in the region of Rs. 2 crore, the ‘spiritual’ film opened last month to a modest box-office collection. Within weeks, however, audiences began taking a shine to the film with the phenomenal result that its domestic collections had surged past the Rs. 150 crore mark. Whatever the final tally, the fact that a film made for a fraction of the budgets of mainstream Bollywood productions has emerged as a major commercial success has raised eyebrows. The man responsible for this is Vishal Chaturvedi, a doctor-turned-filmmaker, writer and producer whose route to cinema has been anything but conventional. Chaturvedi was born and brought up in Lucknow and completed his MBBS from Gorakhpur in 2006. While posted in Haldwani that year, he visited Kainchi Dham. It was there that he encountered the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba, the spiritual figure whose life and philosophy would eventually become the foundation of his first feature film. For almost two decades, the thought of making a film around Neem Karoli Baba remained with Chaturvedi. His journey towards Hanuman Ansh itself reportedly took nearly 14 years. Along the way, he left medicine and even gave up music before committing himself fully to filmmaking. What might appear in retrospect as an overnight success was therefore anything but overnight. Hanuman Ansh tells the story of Lakshminarayan, who would later become Neem Karoli Baba. Following his mother’s death, the young Lakshman leaves home in search of God. His journey through forests, temples and villages becomes a gradual renunciation of worldly life and a movement towards spirituality. The film also incorporates episodes associated with Neem Karoli Baba, including the famous account of a British train being stopped after he was forced off it. But perhaps the most revealing part of Chaturvedi’s story is not what he put into the film, but what he deliberately kept out while writing it. He removed digital devices from his room and wrote the story entirely by hand. His assistants subsequently photographed the handwritten pages and converted them into digital form. He spent nearly 45 days writing the first scene alone. For Chaturvedi, however, the first scene was the foundation of the entire film. Once he had found it, the rest of the screenplay came together rapidly, taking another 15 to 20 days. Hanuman Ansh was the culmination of a personal conviction that had survived for nearly 20 years. Its success also raises a larger question about the changing economics of Indian cinema. The film is unlikely to signal the death of stars, spectacle or big budgets. Nor does every low-budget film with a strong idea automatically become a blockbuster. But Hanuman Ansh, alongside other recent successes such as Dhurandhar, points towards something increasingly important: content can create its own market when audiences feel they have discovered something worth talking about. The old model depended heavily on pre-release visibility. The new one increasingly depends on post-release conversation. A film need not necessarily dominate advertising if audiences themselves become its marketing department. That is particularly significant for films operating outside the traditional Bollywood template. Hanuman Ansh does not have the conventional ingredients of a commercial blockbuster. Its subject is spiritual, its central character is not a contemporary superstar and its budget was tiny by industry standards. Yet its audience appears to have expanded precisely because it offered something different. Today, audiences are becoming less willing to accept that the size of a film’s budget determines its value. They can reject an expensive production and embrace a modest one if the latter connects emotionally, culturally or spiritually. For Chaturvedi, the irony is striking. A man who walked away from medicine to pursue filmmaking spent years chasing a story that the mainstream industry apparently did not rush to embrace. That makes Hanuman Ansh’s success more than a box-office curiosity. It is a reminder that while budgets and big-name stars may buy scale and draw attention, the belief among audiences that a particular film is telling a solid story and hence must be seen is priceless. Chaturvedi appears to have spent years building his belief around one story. Judging by the box office receipts, the audience, too, seems to have bought into it.

Evergreen Asha becomes immortal

Quaid Najmi
Apr 12
4 min read

Legendary singer Asha Bhosle dies at the age of 92 following chest pain

Mumbai: With the passing of Asha Bhosle, Indian music’s daring and rebellious diva – the country has not merely lost a singer, but a symbol of sound, emotions, reinvention of a voice that conveyed mischief, sensuality, passions that will haunt listeners for generations.


If Asha could sing a frolicking and timeless qawwali, “Nigahen milan ko jee chahta hai…” (Dil Hi To Hai – 1963), she could croon a velvety “Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko…” (Yaadon Ki Barat, 1973), or a lilting “Ankho se jo utri hai dil me…” (Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, 1963) to the rocking “Dum Maro Dum…” (Hare Rama Hare Krishna, 1971), with equal ease and poise, winning heartbeats all over.


Hailing from the illustrious Mangeshkar family, Asha’s musical journey was hardly a bed of roses. A favorite of her dad Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar, she often faced the brunt of her own rebellious nature, was uncharitably compared with her sister, Lata Mangeshkar’s singing style.


Though she eloped with an aide, Ganpatrao Bhosle in 1949, at the age of 16 and married him, she did not abandon music but developed her own unique style - blessed with her husky, expressive, versatile and nasal timbred voice – to jostle for an identity among the legends like Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt and Mubarak Begum.


Creative Boost

Her persistence, with a creative boost from the masters Ghulam Mohammed, O. P. Nayyar and later R. D. Burman, paid off and hoisted her firmly on an equal but independent pedestal among the top female singers of that era.


“Asha Bhosle’s voice was refreshing and unique … I built my entire musical career on unconventional voices. I never asked Lata to sing for me as my music was also very different and her voice did not suit my composition styles,” Nayyar had once told this correspondent.


Under the batons of Nayyar, Burman father-son duo, and many other great composers, Asha blossomed and grew, singing silky melodies to powerful crescendos, pop, disco, rock, classical and adapting easily to diverse genres. Her repertoire spanned soft songs, romantic melodies, peppy cabarets to exhilarating qawwalis, soulful ghazals, divine bhajans and classical compositions. She crooned under the batons of masters like Ghulam Mohammed to young geniuses like A. R. Rahman and many more.


Groomed, guided by different ‘Gurus’, Asha radiated energy from “Piya Tu Ab To Aaja…”, “O Mere Sona Re Sona Re…”, captured the rebellious spirit of the 1970s generation with “Dum Maro Dum” (1971), “Ek Main Aur Ek Tu” (1975), musical depth in ghazals of “Umrao Jaan” (1981) that earned her a National Award with “In Ankhon Ki Masti Me…” and a bhajan “Tora Man Darpan Kehlaye…” (Kaajal – 1965) or the vivacious “Tanha, Tanha, Yahan Pe Jeena…” (Rangeela, 1995) and “Sun Sun Didi Tere Liye…” (Khoobsurat, 1980).


Musical Genius

In a chat with this correspondent, Lata Mangeshkar once grudgingly acknowledged Asha charting her own musical journey to emerge from the elder sister’s shadows. “In many ways, she is even better than me,” Lata laughed and said.


Bollywood composers said that Asha’s musical genius was understanding the mood of the song, the situation in the film and the final audiences, and make an effort not just to ‘sing’ the lyrics but ‘perform’ them, swinging and gliding silently from the sensuous to the sublime. Some examples: “Aiye Meherbaan…” (Howrah Bridge, 1958), “Aage Bhi, Jaane Na Tu…” (Waqt, 1965), “Jhumka Gira Re…” (Mera Saaya, 1966) , “Aao Huzur Tumko…” (Kismat, 1968), “Saiya Le Gayi Jiya…” (Ek Phool Do Maali – 1969), “Reshmi Ujala Hai…” (Sharmilee, 1971).


Besides Nayyar who gave Asha a strong foundation and Ravi who explored the heights and depths of her voice, her second husband R D Burman’s musical creations were the most iconic and redefine film music from the 1960-1980s. They offered a cocktail of Indian melodies, jazz, rock, Arabian and Latin influences, experimenting with the Indian listeners and laid the foundation of the future of Bollywood music.


“Piya Tu Ab To Aaja…”, “Parde Me Rehne Do…” “Rakkasa Mera Naam…”, “Sapna Mera Toot Gaya…” “Ye Ladka, Hai Allah, Kaisa Hai Deewana…”, “Jaane Jaan, Dhoondhta Fir Raha…”, et al, were some masterpieces.


Across Genres

After the music directors of the golden era faded or passed away, Asha seamlessly adapted to the contemporary generation of creators like Anu Malik, Jatin-Lalit and A. R. Rahman, shattering myths about musical evolution across generational gaps. She continued delivering the same, and more, with her staggering range of songs across genres that left even the afficionados breathless.


Inspired by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley who influenced her pacy singing style, Asha set eyes on wooing the global audiences with experimentation, remixes and fusion, turning ears long before such collaborations became a rage. Asha joined hands with artists like Boy George, Stephen Lauscombe, Leslee Peter Lewis, Michael Stipe, and bands like Code Red, Cornershop, Kronos Quartet among other similar ventures.


Over seven decades of a crooning career for heroines or vamps, emotional and defiant, romantic and spiritual, traditions and rebellions, she notched over 12,000 songs and a Guinness World Record, top honours, awards and accolades, with her passion for singing equalling that of cooking to found her global chain of restaurants, “Asha’s”.


Despite Asha’s running feud with Lata, the duo showed none of it and sang scores of memorable numbers together. “Mere Mebooh Me Kya Nahin, Kya Nahin”, “Main Chali Main Chali, Dekho Pyar Ki Gali”, “Chaap Tilak Sab Cheeni Re, Tose Naina Milayke”, “Man Kyun Behka Re Behka, Aadhi Raat Ko”, plus more.


However, over the years, the two sisters buried old bitterness and rivalry, both professional and personal, and Asha paid glowing, tongue-in-cheek tributes to Lata after her demise at a public function graced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Comments

bottom of page