The Motley Stars

India’s new YouTube celebrities are going well beyond urban audiences, with varied languages and content.

- Pankti Mehta Kadakia

ZOOMED IN: MULTI-COLOURED flowers, fluttering in the breeze; zoomed out: A green field, mud huts and a river in the background, a large, oval watermelon in focus. A wizened face with a toothless smile comes into the frame.

Mastanamma, as the small, grandmother-like figure is fondly called, wears a simple cotton saree, her hair in an oiled bun, and a mischievous glint in her eyes. She is cooking chicken inside the watermelon, using a traditional recipe and a simple coal chulha outdoors, speaking in Telugu that is translated into English subtitles. Mastanamma claims to be 107 years old, and lives in a village near Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. She has 1.1 million subscribers on YouTube—clocking up to 15 million views on each video.

Mastanamma’s fans are from Rajasthan, Pakistan, Canada, Colombia, Serbia, Mexico, Indonesia… the list goes on. Hers is the new face of India’s YouTube celebrity, steadily pushing past urban and linguistic borders and barriers. As India’s nonmetro population gets increasingly hooked to mobile data and offbeat content, a new category of YouTube stars is emerging—and they are no longer just of the typically popular young-male-urban-comedian variety.