{
  "id": 8352715,
  "title": "Looking for Neem Karoli Baba: How a 20th century guru found a new generation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/19/looking-for-neem-karoli-baba-how-a-20th-century-guru-found-a-new",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-09-19T01:30:32.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Indian Express",
    "slug": "the-indian-express",
    "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/long-reads/hanuman-ansh-neem-karoli-baba-biopic-three-hundred-crore-box-office-kainchi-dham-pilgrim-surge-10884087/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Neem Karoli Baba, a 20th-century Indian spiritual guru, gained worldwide renown during the Western spiritual counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1900 as Lakshman Narayan Sharma into a wealthy Brahmin family in Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad district, he wandered extensively across Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh before settling in Neeb Karori village in Farrukhabad district. It was here that he began creating places of worship and eventually built his first temple, Hanuman Garhi, on the Manora hillside in Nainital. Over the next two decades, he expanded his influence by establishing temples and ashrams in various locations, including Bhumiyadhar, Kainchi, Kakrighat in Uttarakhand, Vrindavan, Kanpur, Lucknow, Shimla, and Delhi in India. Kainchi Dham became the principal ashram of his later years and is now visited by thousands of devotees each day, with an unprecedented surge in attention starting around 2015, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the Facebook headquarters where Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the impact of a \"difficult period\" in his life, inspiring him to visit Kainchi Dham.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [
    "Neem Karoli Baba born Lakshman Narayan Sharma in 1900",
    "Gained worldwide renown in 1960s-1970s Western counterculture",
    "Kainchi Dham became principal ashram in later years"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Neem Karoli Baba's enduring appeal to a new generation signals a revival of interest in traditional Indian spirituality, with his following now extending far beyond its original 1960s and 1970s counterculture roots.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}