A Saint Born in a Village, Remembered by Silicon Valley, Now Coming to the Screen

In the village of Akbarpur, tucked inside Gram Panchayat Nagau in Firozabad, a boy was born around 1900 who would go on to quietly reshape the spiritual lives of millions.

From the farmers of Uttarakhand to the founders of Apple and Facebook. That boy was Neem Karoli Baba, and his life is finally getting the cinematic treatment it deserves.

Mumbai-based director Sharad Singh Thakur, with support from the UP Tourism Department, has completed shooting on Shri Baba Neeb Karori Maharaj, a biopic that traces Maharaj-ji's journey from birth to his leaving of the mortal world.

Filming took place across Kainchi Dham, Vrindavan, Prayagraj and Mumbai, with elaborate period sets recreating a world from a century ago.

"Now, a biopic on Neem Karoli Baba is set for release in April 2026, bringing the life of the spiritual figure who influenced Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and global leaders to the big screen."

Actor Subodh Bhave plays the Baba. The film, clocking in at over two hours and twenty minutes, is set for an April 2026 release, and its poster was launched last September in Lucknow by UP Tourism Minister Jai Veer Singh.

Why This Film Could Be Something Much Bigger Than Bollywood Expects

To understand why this biopic carries unusual weight, you first have to understand who Neem Karoli Baba was and more importantly, who he became after his death.

His teachings were rooted in radical simplicity: love everyone, serve everyone, surrender the ego. He never sought the spotlight, never built an empire around himself. He didn't preach religion. He radiated love. And yet the world kept finding him anyway.

His most well-known Western devotee was Ram Dass, the Harvard psychologist, whose work built a bridge between Eastern and Western philosophy. Ram Dass's books, Be Here Now and Miracle of Love, carried Maharaj-ji's presence across continents long after 1973, when Baba passed away at a hospital in Vrindavan. His last words, repeated softly several times, were "Jaya Jagadish Hare."

Then came the Silicon Valley chapter, which is where the story gets genuinely strange.

In the early 1970s, long before Apple existed, a directionless Steve Jobs read Be Here Now, became fascinated by Neem Karoli Baba, and traveled to India to find him.

By the time he reached the ashram, Baba had already passed. But the experience left a mark that never faded. Jobs reportedly kept a photograph of Neem Karoli Baba beside him in his final days.

Years later, Zuckerberg was facing enormous pressure during Facebook's early days when Jobs personally advised him to visit the same ashram. He went.

Larry Brilliant, the inaugural director of Google.org, took Google's Larry Page and eBay co-founder Jeffrey Skoll on a pilgrimage to Kainchi Ashram. Jack Dorsey, Julia Roberts, Virat Kohli. The list of people drawn to Maharaj-ji's orbit, decades after his death, reads like a strange and genuinely moving cross-section of the modern world.

What does it mean that a blanket-clad saint from a small UP village became a silent patron of the digital age? That is a question no Indian film has yet seriously tried to answer. This one has the chance to be the first.

The Miracles That Made Him a Legend

Baba's life was filled with miraculous events. Whether it was healing the sick, guiding devotees through hardship, or performing seemingly impossible feats, his acts were seen as pure expressions of divine love.

One of the most striking stories comes from the village itself. The Baba had been spending long stretches meditating in a cave beneath a Hanuman temple, and he warned the villagers never to enter.

One day, a boy named Gopal ignored the warning. Inside, what he found nearly stopped his heart. Baba was seated in deep meditation, eyes closed, breathing still, and wrapped around his body were dozens of snakes, coiled across his shoulders and arms, resting near his face. Baba was completely calm. Unshaken. Terrified, Gopal fainted. When Baba found him outside the cave, he placed a hand gently on the boy's head. Moments later, Gopal opened his eyes, completely fine. From that day, the villagers stopped seeing him merely as a saint. They believed Hanuman himself had walked among them.

These are the kinds of scenes that, done right on screen, travel far beyond the audience they were made for. Indian cinema has proven it can build mythology from scratch. Imagine what it can do with one that already lives in the hearts of tens of millions.

Back in Nagau, a Village Waking Up

Meanwhile, Baba's birthplace is undergoing its own quiet transformation. The Akbarpur village is seeing crores worth of development, temple beautification, a new pilgrim facility, parking and road construction.

A proposal has been sent to the state government to officially rename the village Neeb Karori Dham, in the spirit of Kainchi Dham. Five homes have been registered as homestays with the Tourism Department, allowing visitors from cities and abroad to experience village life, the food, the rhythms, the culture, at around ₹1,000 a night.

The film and the destination are arriving together this April.

Indian cinema has long searched for stories that can genuinely travel, stories with soul, scale and spiritual gravity that don't need to manufacture emotion.

Neem Karoli Baba's life is all of that, already written. The biopic is a beginning. Whether it becomes the start of a new wave in Indian storytelling depends on how boldly the filmmakers are willing to tell the whole story.

Not just the saint on the blanket, but the Harvard professor who found him, the tech billionaires who were changed by him, and the millions of ordinary people who still light an agarbatti before his photograph every single morning.

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