Composer Dhirendra Mulkalwar Reveals He Almost Quit Music, Then Came Hanuman Ansh

For 20 years, Dhirendra Mulkalwar aka Dhiru had been struggling in the music industry on films, ad jingles and web series. And then, just when he was ready to walk away from it all, Dhirendra got the call that changed everything. That call was for Hanuman Ansh, this year’s biggest breakout film. Dhiru has composed the entire background score of the film and has also composed the song Siyavar Ramchandra Ki Jai. Two decades of waiting, one unplanned detour on a highway, and he finally has the success he had been working towards all these years.

The Neem Karoli Baba film directed by Vishal Chaturvedi that nobody was betting on has turned into 2026’s biggest surprise hit. Made on roughly 2 crores, it opened quietly in about 250 screens and made a modest 90 lakhs in week one. Then word of mouth took over. The distributors expanded it to over 2,000 screens, the film got an overseas release, and it has now crossed 268 crores worldwide, making it one of the most profitable Indian films ever made. Uttarakhand has declared it tax-free. A sequel is already in the works.

And right in the middle of that success sits Dhirendra Mulkalwar who comes from Chandrapur, a small town in Maharashtra which is a Naxal-affected area. He started learning music at the age of 12 and performed on All India Radio within a year. He later moved to Mumbai and studied audio engineering. For the last two decades, he has worked as a music producer on films like Uri: The Surgical Strike, Article 15, Toilet Ek Prem Katha, the series Selection Day, and advertisements for various top brands. But the work always came in bits and pieces, with long gaps in between, and the recognition never really came.

Talking about how he got the film, Dhirendra shares, “In the last one and a half years, I had seriously started thinking I should quit the industry and do something else with music. For four years I’d been planning to go to Kainchi Dham. Friends kept saying ‘we’ll go, we’ll go’. Last year I was heading to Jim Corbett for a jungle safari, and one of my friends surprised me… he made a detour and took us to Kainchi Dham. That was April 2025. In July that same year, I was offered Hanuman Ansh.”

The coincidence goes deeper. “I’ve known Vishalji for at least one to one and a half years. I didn’t know he was making a film on Babaji. He didn’t know I had a connection with Babaji. Before this film, Vishalji had organised a 43-day Hanuman Chalisa anushthaan, and he invited me for it. That’s when we both got talking and he offered me the film.”

With Hanuman Ansh, Dhirendra Mulkalwar’s 20-year wait has finally ended, and he is now being counted among the composers to watch out for!