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...

min read

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 New Bollywood Template: Patriotism, Punch and Paydays

Ccholena Chaturvedi

Apr 9

3 min read

In today’s Hindi blockbusters, patriotism is no longer just a theme — it is a trigger.

Mainstream Hindi cinema today follows a pattern that is no longer subtle; it is engineered. The recent success of some of the industry’s biggest hits has hardened a new formula: nationalism fused with stylised violence, wrapped in a spectacle, and delivered with emotional certainty. Placed against this backdrop, Dhurandhar fits comfortably into an ecosystem where patriotism is no longer just a theme but a trigger. Let’s unbox this!

Emotion over Nuance

Storytelling in Bollywood has moved from layered masala-laden narratives to visceral experiences. Films these days are no longer influencing Indian audiences to think; instead, they are asking them to feel. And nothing activates feeling faster than nation-first narratives clubbed with conflict.

As film critic Anupama Chopra has often argued, cinema reflects the anxieties and aspirations of its time. That identity is more often than not national. And it’s repeatedly under threat!

Violence and Validation

Violence in films like Dhurandhar isn’t incidental; it’s moralised. Unlike the nineties, the protagonists in today’s films do not just fight but avenge, protect, and restore too. The aggression is portrayed as necessary, sometimes even righteous.

Consider the rise of films preceding Dhurandhar, like Uri: The Surgical Strike, Pathaan, and Gadar 2. Each uses conflict to completely justify heightened action. The message implied is nothing but ‘strength equals survival and survival equals victory.’

“Desh sirf zameen nahi hota …uske liye khoon bhi dena padta hai!” This sentiment symbolises the spirit of freedom struggle, the real fight for independence, but it could perfectly define the engineered nationalism that the Hindi films like Dhurandhar portray. It is not an actual dialogue in the film but is the base of the narrative. It is actually a positioning statement that validates blistering violence swathed in nationalism.

Why does this funda work so well? Because it taps into the collective emotional landscape – pride, anger, fear, and belonging! In uncertain times, audiences gravitate toward stories that offer clarity along with an adrenaline rush. Heroes are unequivocal. Enemies, picked up from real-life instances, are clearly defined. The world truly makes sense for 3 hours and thrills too!

Scholars such as Ashish Nandy have long noted that popular cinema often simplifies reality to make it emotionally accessible. And right now, that combo – reality and simplicity – sells!

The Box Office Formula

From a trade perspective, the formula is almost algorithmic: high-stakes nationalism widens the film’s demographic reach, action-heavy set pieces drive repeat footfalls in the mass market, clear moral binaries create simple and effective marketing hooks, and punchy dialogue becomes ready-made currency for social media virality.

The Dhurandhar franchise has adhered closely to this formula: a hero who embodies unquestioned nationalism, a villain cast as the most familiar external threat, large-scale set pieces that marry spectacle with sacrifice, dialogues designed for applause, and a narrative that rejects ambiguity in favour of emotional certainty. In that sense, Dhurandhar is less a story than a statement.

The Creative Trade-Off

However, here’s the uncomfortable truth. What works commercially doesn’t always enrich cinematically!

It’s a given that storytelling will risk losing its depth if violence is the language and nationalism is used as a shortcut for box-office success. The industry gets habitual of repeating rather than taking risks.

Directors such as Mani Ratnam have repeatedly shown that political cinema can provoke thought rather than merely deliver answers.

Compared with many of the socially layered films of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, today’s biggest blockbusters often leave less room for ambiguity.

This formula of nationalism and violence is not accidental – it’s responsive. Its success clearly indicates what audiences are drawn to, what producers are happily backing, and what the current cultural mood demands. However, formulas don’t last long; they are meant to be broken.

This formula of nationalism and violence is not accidental; it is responsive. Its success reveals what audiences are drawn to, what producers are willing to back, and what the current cultural mood rewards. But formulas rarely endure forever. The real question is whether Bollywood will continue to escalate patriotism and violence — or rediscover the power of ambiguity. Somewhere between the crack of gunfire and the swell of patriotic chants, there is still room for a quieter, braver kind of storytelling. When that returns, it may redefine success all over again.

(The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi. Views personal.)

From Doctor to Box-Office Disruptor

The New Bollywood Template: Patriotism, Punch and Paydays

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