Hanuman Ansh released quietly on August 7, to only 250 screens. 45 days later, the movie is in running on 7,000 screens, grossing over ₹350 crore on the global box office. The sleeper hit is a biopic of Neem Karoli Baba, a revered spiritual figure. Thanks to its runaway success, the movie’s music has been making waves too – the album is number 1 on Apple Music, and the song “Parvati” has crossed 100 million views on YouTube cumulatively, climbing to number 2 on YouTube Music’s global charts. The Bundeli folk composition had been used in over 700,000 Reels as well, adding to its viral fame.
The music continued to rise on charts after the movie became a word-of-mouth success, with “Parvati” also rising on Spotify’s India’s charts – at the time of publishing it was at number 12 on Spotify India’s Top 100. Times Music, the label behind the songs, released the song videos on YouTube through the last few weeks, helping the growth of the music. Times Music has a catalogue of strong spiritual music alongside its other releases, and Mandar Thakur, CEO of Times Music, revealed to Billboard India that they agreed to back the music before actually watching the film, as they really liked the songs.
The soundtrack is by multiple artists and composers – “Parvati” is by Sadhu Tiwari (Tiwari also composed and sang four more tracks for the film), “Maine Teri Hi Bharose” by Suneel Lodhi, “Jai Hanuman” by Shreyas Dharmadhikari, and “Siyavar Ramchandra Ki Jai” by Shantanu Sudame and Dhirendra Mulkalwar. Mulkalwar also did the background score for the film, marking his first solo credit as Music Director in a two decade journey.
The movie, and the music, is being appreciated by audiences of all ages across India. “This beats all cliches and every other noise in the marketplace. This cuts through a cohort, it cuts through a target audience, it cuts through age groups. Mothers, grandfathers, urban kids, Gen Z, everyone’s onto it,” said Mandar Thakur, in a conversation with Billboard India. For him, this music language is an “India-unifier.”
