She is thrilled at the overnight popularity and attention she has been receiving. Why wouldn't she be? At 106, Mastanamma has become a YouTube sensation—and could possibly be the world's oldest YouTuber. The grey haired grandmother is the star of a widely-viewed YouTube cooking channel Country Foods, in which she whips up local delicacies, and shares tips from her traditional culinary expertise.
Karre Mastanamma lives in a small village of Gudiwada, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. She is surrounded by her relatives, but she lives alone in a small hut, adjacent to her sole living son David's house. Mastanamma has lived her life with its share of struggles—being a daily wage labourer and living from hand to mouth. In fact, till August 2016 Mastanamma would still work in the fields and get Rs 200 or 300 for her labour which she would share with her son.
All credit for her new-found stardom goes to her grandson Karre Laxman, a graphic designer who has worked with a couple of television channels. "She had made a brinjal curry for me and my friends, when we came home one day. It was appreciated so well that I decided to put a video on YouTube and it went viral. This was in August 2016," recalls Laxman.
Mastanamma with K. Laxman (on her right) and Srinath Reddy
Laxman's friend Srinath Reddy adds: "It was a block buster and just that single dish had 75 lakh viewers. I would say it was a bigger hit than Baahubali." Realising the power of the internet and social media, Laxman and Srinath launched the YouTube channel Country Foods, which has 4 crore followers and still counting.
Born Martamma in the village of Kopale, she was adopted by a Muslim family who did not have a daughter. They changed her name to Mastanamma, but the child did not want to stay with her new family and soon she was back in her village. At 15, she married Bhushanam who died a few years later. After her husband's death, Mastanamma was left alone to fend for their five children—four sons and one daughter. Of the five, only her eldest—David—is alive today and he is bedridden.
David's daughter Rajshri acts the sous chef in her grandmother's now-gone-viral-cookery videos. But Mastanamma is not particularly happy with the help, for she is used to doing things her own way, but then since the whole cooking scene is being shot, she accepts the help. The shooting is done in the most picturesque of places. She chats through the videos and gives instructions, too. But Mastanamma insists she add the masalas and the final closure of the dish is only after she has tasted it. Her popular egg in tomato, or watermelon chicken curry are a major hit.
Her popularity is evident when she says she celebrated her 106th birthday on April 10 with money sent by her admirers and viewers. She got bangles and five saris as gifts and they could feed 40 members of the village.
While many people across the world follow the cookery channel, most visitors are registered from India, followed by the US, Pakistan, UK and Malaysia. "Viewers like her no-nonsense style and adore it when she peels ginger with her nails and peels the tomato when adding to a recipe. Every recipe when uploaded will have subtitles, along with the recipe and in case we forget, we get thousands of comments on how we could forget," says Srinath.
Mastanamma says cooking comes naturally to her. Quite believable, for like many other grannies, her measure is her eye and her judgement is the taste she gets on her tongue. She has no teeth and went on to tell a long tale of how she fell and broke her dentures, too. She has cataract in both her eyes. "The doctors say that it is possible she will lose her sight if we try to do any surgery," says Laxman. But teeth or no teeth, she likes her chicken. She eats very little but enjoys cooking. In fact each time there is a shoot, the farmers working nearby and the labourers also get to feast on the meal for she does not cook a small quantity.
Two or three recipes are uploaded every alternate day and both the boys rush against time, for they have to finish shooting and then go to a place where there is good internet connectivity. Now with Mastanamma's popularity growing, they are bringing out pickles made by her, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian and plan to call it 'Country Food Pickles'. They will be launching it on a commercial scale soon.
While they treasure all the visitors and others who come to meet with Mastanamma, the village is thrilled when Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, and Information and Broadcasting, tweeted: "I congratulate Gudiwada Mastanamma, who cooks even at this age."
