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...

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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.

The Master’s Ordeal

Capt. Naveen S. Singhal and Capt. M. M. Saggi

1 day ago

4 min read

Updated: 26 minutes ago

**Caught in the Crossfire: Capt. Ajay Pant**

The prosecution of Indian Master Capt. Ajay Pant, following Britain’s seizure of the tanker SMYRTOS, deserves closer international scrutiny.

Calling it simply a campaign against Russia’s so-called shadow fleet is highly misleading. Britain itself has, and continues to, benefit from Russian oil trade. According to an investigation by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), between the beginning of Britain’s Russian oil ban and the first quarter of 2025, the UK imported an estimated £3 billion of petroleum products from five refineries in India and Türkiye processing Russian crude. An estimated £1.4 billion of that was derived from Russian crude.

So, while Britain criminally prosecutes the Master of a tanker carrying Russian crude, Russian-origin crude has indirectly entered Britain’s own supply chain after being refined in third countries—and, importantly, with the permission of the UK government.

The Russia-Ukraine war and the ensuing sanctions began on 24 February 2022. In December 2023, the IMO adopted Resolution A.1192(33), calling for action against illegal operations by shadow-fleet vessels. The G7 subsequently committed, in March 2025, to establish a Shadow Fleet Task Force involving G7 and Nordic-Baltic countries.

SMYRTOS sailed on 4 June 2026 with about 100,000 tonnes of Russian crude. Its route to Asia was via the English Channel. By 10 June, Lloyd’s List had publicly reported Cameroon’s purge of 36 vessels. Britain, therefore, did not discover the flag problem with SMYRTOS accidentally on 14 June 2026.

The arrest of the vessel and its Master cannot be viewed in isolation from international law, particularly at a time when geopolitical considerations and domestic political pressures can increasingly influence decisions with far-reaching consequences for individuals caught in circumstances well beyond their control.

Uncomfortable Contradiction

On 14 June, Royal Marines and National Crime Agency officers boarded SMYRTOS. Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally presented the operation as a blow against Russia and told Parliament that, in the days preceding the interdiction, British forces, supported by allies including France, had “closely tracked and monitored” SMYRTOS because it was suspected of using a false flag.

Yet a month earlier, on 19 May, the UK government had announced new measures aimed at closing what it itself described as the “back door” through which Russian crude, after being refined in third countries such as India or Türkiye, could enter Britain as petroleum products.

That prohibition was followed by the UK government issuing General Trade Licence GBSAN0004, permitting the continued import of specified diesel and jet fuel even if those products had been produced from Russian crude in third countries, until 1 January 2027.

For other covered petroleum products, a refinery that processes both Russian and non-Russian crude may continue supplying the UK, provided the product exported to Britain can be demonstrated to have been produced from segregated non-Russian crude.

This creates an uncomfortable contradiction worth debating: Britain is prosecuting an Indian Master for carrying Russian crude to a third country, while its own sanctions regime temporarily permits British importers to bring diesel and jet fuel into the UK that have actually been refined from Russian crude in third countries.

What one would have expected the UK government to do was disembark the entire crew, transfer the oil ashore and tie up the ballast vessel in a location protected from wind and weather, rather than arresting the Master while the Owner and Charterer of the vessel could be sipping Bordeaux wine.

Now, the UK government will have to manage not just the legal issue but also the weather, which is expected to worsen over time with a loaded tanker.

Are we headed for another Torrey Canyon disaster of 1969? The lesson of earlier maritime disasters is that responsibility does not necessarily stop at the bridge. In his judgment on the 1987 Herald of Free Enterprise capsizing, which caused around 200 deaths among passengers and crew, the Honourable Judge criticised the Board of Directors for negligence in vessel management. Although there were shipboard failures, he observed that “the underlying or cardinal faults lay higher up in the Company”.

He might have understood that the Master, as an employee with limited authority, could have been reluctant to take full control, fearing that doing so would threaten his livelihood.

It would be deeply troubling if sanctions enforcement were to place disproportionate criminal responsibility on individual seafarers while insufficient attention is paid to the corporate entities that arrange, control and profit from the trade.

If seafarers can be called upon to risk their lives carrying the world’s energy through war zones and areas of geopolitical conflict, the international maritime community must equally be prepared to defend them when they become caught in disputes far beyond the normal authority of a ship’s Master.

Soft Targets

Should the world’s seafarers consider a lawful and safety-conscious 12-hour global stoppage to remind governments and regulators that Masters and crews cannot become convenient targets in geopolitical conflicts?

This is about a fundamental principle of justice: responsibility should follow authority, knowledge and control.

If the commercial decisions were made ashore, if the cargo was fixed ashore, if the voyage was ordered ashore, and if information concerning the vessel’s deregistration was known ashore, then the international maritime community should ask a simple question:

Why should the seafarer standing on the bridge become the principal face of criminal responsibility while those who organised and profited from the commercial venture remain largely out of public view?

Capt. Ajay Pant deserves a fair trial. He did not own SMYRTOS. He did not impose sanctions on Russia. He did not control the Cameroon registry. He did not fix the charter. He did not receive any commission for the charter. An employed Master does not decide which cargo his owners or charterers commercially fix, or where that cargo is bought and sold.

We are in 2026, not the 1750s, when the Master owned the vessel, selected his crew, paid its expenses and also selected which cargo he wished to carry. I call upon the ITF and seafarers’ unions to decide whether this is the moment to run with the hare or hunt with the hounds.

(Capt. Naveen Singhal is Marine Consultant and Member of the Singapore Shipping Association and Capt. MM Saggi is former Nautical Advisor, Government of India. Views personal.)

From Doctor to Box-Office Disruptor

The Master’s Ordeal

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