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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.

Oil Siege

Correspondent
Dec 18, 2025
3 min read

Washington’s oil squeeze of Venezuela risks collective punishment without significant political gain.

US President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “total and complete blockade” of Venezuelan oil shipments marks a sharp escalation in America’s long-running campaign against Nicolás Maduro. Framed as an enforcement action against sanctioned tankers and ‘ghost ships,’ the move in effect threatens the single remaining artery of Venezuela’s economy. Oil, besides being Venezuela’s principal export, is the state’s last functioning source of cash, patronage and political survival. Choking it further may deepen the country’s misery but it is far from clear that it will loosen Maduro’s grip on power.


Venezuela has been living under American oil sanctions for six years. In that time, Caracas has perfected the art of evasion. Crude has been sold quietly at heavy discounts, mostly to China, via a shadow fleet of ageing tankers, frequent ship-to-ship transfers and creative paperwork. The proceeds have been meagre, but sufficient to keep the lights on in the presidential palace. Trump’s blockade aims to disrupt this system by raising the risks and costs of moving Venezuelan oil at all.


The economic consequences could be severe. Venezuela produces roughly one million barrels a day - just 2 percent of global output but almost all of its export earnings. Analysts warn that exports could fall by as much as half if sanctioned tankers are seized regularly or deterred from docking. Storage capacity is limited. If oil cannot be shipped, production will have to be shut in, potentially slashing output by hundreds of thousands of barrels a day. For a country already hollowed out by hyperinflation, mass emigration and institutional decay, the shock would be brutal.


This would not be Venezuela’s first oil collapse. Production once exceeded three million barrels a day in the early 2000s. Years of corruption, underinvestment and political purges at PDVSA, the state oil company, drove output to a nadir of 350,000 barrels a day by 2020. A modest recovery followed, helped by sanctions-busting exports and a limited easing of American restrictions. The blockade now threatens to reverse even that fragile rebound.


The pain will be felt unevenly. Chevron, operating under a special American licence, continues to ship oil to the United States and accounts for about a tenth of Venezuela’s production. But even this arrangement starves Caracas of cash: Chevron pays taxes and royalties in crude, not dollars. The real blow will fall on exports to Asia, particularly China, which takes around 80 percent of Venezuelan crude. Discounted barrels will grow cheaper still, if buyers are willing to risk them at all. Billions of dollars in annual revenue could vanish.


Trump has accused Maduro of using oil income to fund ‘drug terrorism’ and criminality, and casts America’s growing naval presence in the Caribbean as an extension of its war on narcotics. Yet the optics are awkward. Since September, American forces have seized dozens of vessels and killed at least 95 people, including fishermen. For Caracas, the blockade fits neatly into a familiar narrative of imperial aggression and resource theft.


The deeper problem is strategic. Sanctions have undeniably impoverished Venezuela. They have not, however, produced political change. Maduro has survived by shrinking the economy, dollarising informally, tolerating pockets of private enterprise and relying on loyal security forces. As the state’s revenues fall, the burden shifts to ordinary Venezuelans, not the ruling elite. A sharper oil squeeze may accelerate emigration, not democratisation.


Any sudden loss of Venezuelan barrels nudges oil prices upward, as markets already hinted after the blockade was announced. China, meanwhile, will weigh how much it is willing to antagonise Washington to secure discounted crude.


A blockade that halves Venezuela’s exports will not dislodge its authoritarian ruler. It will merely crush an economy already on life support, pushing ordinary Venezuelans deeper into penury while the political elite insulates itself, as it always has. Oil has long been Venezuela’s curse as well as its blessing. By turning it into a chokehold, Washington may deepen the tragedy without resolving it. Siege economics can break states but they rarely reform them. 


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