India, Sept. 6 -- Massive, mega-budget spectacles usually hog the Sunday headlines. Yet, one of the most surprising stories in Indian cinema today belongs to a tiny devotional film, Hanuman Ansh. Directed by Vishal Chaturvedi, a former MBBS doctor who left medicine to pursue filmmaking, the film, based on Neem Karoli Baba's spiritual journey, is proving to be an unlikely box-office success. The makers shot the whole project on a ridiculously tight budget of just Rs 2 crore. When it first hit screens on August 7, opening day collections brought in a dismal Rs 10 lakh.

The film initially appeared unlikely to recover its costs. But then word-of-mouth kicked in, and audiences began turning up in growing numbers, completely changing its fortu...