Indian village granny winning hearts over YouTube

Guntur District; AP: Her food channel on YouTube made her international sensation in the world of culinary.

Masthanamma is known as “Granny” on her channel created by her great grandson Laxman K.,and his friend Srinath Reddy. Married at 11, is now 106-year-old, lives in a village about 10 KM away from Tenali. She’s been living all by her herself since she lost her husband when she was 22 years.

The woman known to few people before is now a known personality on YouTube with over 43 million views. Until last year she was working in a paddy field. The lady is known as an authoritative person, wise and majestic, villager’s relate her qualities to that of a banyan tree.

‘Granny’ as she is called is seen cooking extraordinary dishes in traditional village style be it a simple omlette to cooking variety of Indian food.

YouTube video

“Both of us were video editors and we took a liking to cooking. We started the channel in August last year and put up around 40 videos of us cooking. They were doing okay, but once we got granny on board, the views shot up! Our channel now has over two lakh subscribers. Just within a day, a video gets one lakh views”, says elated Srinath.

Srinath recalls “Laxman did not know much about his great grandmother. Once, we decided to go on a holiday to his village. There, when we told people about our channel, Laxman’s mother told us that granny cooks well. The first recipe she cooked was an eggplant curry and it was great! Initially, she had no idea of the Internet. When we went back and showed her the videos, she understood what a celebrity she has become.”

“We celebrated her birthday recently and she received a sari from a subscriber from Pakistan. Another Indian family from New Zealand invited her over to felicitate her. However, she is too attached to her hut in which she has been living for over 90 years, so even though her son stays next door and wants her to stay with him, she doesn’t want to be dependent. She was married at the age of 11 and lost four of her five children to Cholera, so she has got used to living by herself”, says the delighted great grandson remembering one of his most pleasantry moments with her, according to Deccan Chronicle.