Author: Avijit Ghosh, TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 10, 2026
URL:   https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/arts-entertainment/baba-box-office-bhakti/articleshow/134015842.cms

Hanuman Ansh, a movie on mystic Neeb Karori Baba, whose death anniversary falls today, is a sleeper superhit. Will the film, being globally released today, revive the devotional genre in India?

It’s a morning of hard rain, but the multiplex in Noida has a decent turnout. It’s primarily an elderly audience, seemingly the ‘non-Odyssey’ people, some old enough to be chaperoned by Gen Z. They have come to watch Hanuman Ansh, a film that arrived quieter than a whisper and now has India agog. The film is a magical, mystical tour of the life of Neeb Karori Baba – Neem Karoli Baba to many – who passed away on this day in 1973, but whose ashram in the hills of Kumaon continues to be a seeker’s soul kitchen. Visitors since include Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Julia Roberts, Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli.

Like most devotionals, Hanuman Ansh teems with miracles. Anyone who has watched interviews of its writer-director Vishal Chaturvedi, also an MBBS doctor, would know that the film’s making too is no less than a miracle. To complete the cycle of wonders is its astonishing success.

Hanuman Ansh was reportedly made for about ₹2cr – a 3 BHK flat in east Delhi costs more. Figures on trade tracker Sacnilk’s website show the film sold tickets worth ₹10L on the first day. For the first two weeks, it hardly created a ripple at the cash counters. But with distributors uncommonly keeping the faith, ticket sales surged. Last Sunday – day 31 – it collected ₹22.8cr, and by Wednesday the total came to ₹151cr. Like the handful of rice that endlessly feeds deprived kids in the film, the crowd and the collection show no sign of stopping. Hanuman Ansh has emerged as the Dhurandhar of devotional films.

The film will be released globally today, and its success has brought the forgotten faith-centric genre back into discourse. Devotionals dominated the film industry right from the ‘silent’ era in the early 1920s. The earnings of Dadasaheb Phalke’s Lanka Dahan (1917) were brought in bullock carts escorted by police in Madras, film magazine Madhuri noted in 1967. Devotionals were also used as a code to promote nationalism during the anti-colonial struggle. In Bhakta Vidur (1921), the wise minister of Mahabharat wore a Gandhi cap. The film was banned. Interestingly, Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1943) was the only Indian feature seen by Mahatma Gandhi.

With the passage of time, though, the genre got largely confined to small producers with low budgets. Premium Hindi stars largely ignored faith-centric films. Bharat Bhushan was an exception. He even received the Filmfare award for best actor playing Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1953).

The genre used ancient Indian epics and Puranas to frame stories of gods, goddesses and saints, men and women who by their karma were worthy of reverence. Film historian Firoze Rangoonwalla wrote in A Pictorial History of Indian Cinema, that “the ideal characters of Ramayana, as interpreted by Valmiki and Tulsidas, have provided an endless source of films showing good fighting and destroying evil in its worst form. They have also justified the qualities of duty, sacrifice, chastity, tolerance et al, being virtues as practised by a vast majority of people, whether voluntarily or enforced by circumstances.” He also said that “by and large these themes have been treated in a crude, melodramatic, pseudo-devout fashion.”

Public-school India mostly ignored these films, but the genre enjoyed a devoted band of faithfuls among rural and small-town women. At least 25 films had, ‘Sati’ (virtuous woman), in their title between 1931-91. During the same period, more than 10 films were named after a sant (saint).

No film caused a phenomenal socio-cultural impact like Jai Santoshi Maa (1975). The film’s success, on a par with Sholay, gobsmacked everyone. Thousands of temples dedicated to Santoshi Mata, a little-known goddess before the film, sprouted across the country, prompting academic curiosity abroad.

In the 1980s, GV Iyer’s Adi Shankaracharya (1983), the first film in Sanskrit, won four national awards, including for best feature. During the decade, at least 25 Hindi devotionals were released, but most couldn’t connect with their core audience. Where the films failed, television succeeded. Two DD serials – Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan (1987-88) and BR Chopra’s Mahabharat (1988-90) – became a national habit at a time when VHP’s Ram Janmabhoomi movement was gaining momentum.

In the decades that followed, TV became the preferred home for devotionals. Many gods, goddesses and saints featured in long-running television series, such as Devon ke Dev…Mahadev, Shri Krishna, Siya ke Ram, Om Namah Shivay.

In recent years, mainstream Bollywood productions have selectively harnessed elements from Hindu religious texts, probably hoping to cash in on a larger climate of visible religiosity. Brahmastra and Ram Setu being two examples.

In contrast, seen from a position of faith, Hanuman Ansh is an authentic devotional. The film connects with its audience, tugging at their emotional core. And it has its heart in the right place, gently but clearly questioning the inequities of class and caste, and inter-faith divides. The dialogue, “Bhookhon ko bhojan, bhakton ko prasad,” (Food for the hungry, prasad for the devotee) nourishes that sensitive spirit. The film inspires simplicity, promotes humility, and avoids hate even in adversarial situations. When a Muslim cop offers a vegetarian meal at his home, Baba agrees.

Songs were key to Jai Santoshi Maa’s success. Five decades later, the bhajans in director Chaturvedi’s film also forge a bond, becoming the viewer’s ‘sutradhar’. Hanuman Ansh ends with the line, “Katha abhi shesh hai (to be continued)”. The sequels will come. And film reviewers are unlikely to ignore them anymore.