Zaika Dilli 6: Cooking for the world

It was never my intention to be on YouTube as ‘Zaika Dilli 6’. It was happenstance that I began my YouTube channel almost a year ago. My son likes to eat and try new varieties of food. One day he asked me to make honey-chilli potato and he showed me a video on how to make it. It made me feel that I could make and explain it better. Cooking has always been my interest; initially I thought I would go and teach at one of those cooking schools, but it never happened.

After this, my son kept insisting that I record videos and put it up, but I ignored him for a month. Then one day, he wanted chhachh (buttermilk) and while I was preparing it, he said he would record it and I just have to elaborate the process. Immediately, after that he said we should show white butter. So, on the first day we put up two videos.

Soon after, then we recorded Qorma, Nargisi Kofta and then it became a regularity. Now there are more than 450 dishes and we have more than three lakh subscribers. We still remember our first few followers. Now, we get recipe requests. We get at least 20 requests every day that there’s a waiting period of three months. The most popular dish on my channel is bachhe hua chawal ki cutlet; it has been seen more than 4 million times. Then the sheer qorma; it got 2 million views.

We started recording on my son’s second-hand phone. Mohd. Saquib is a second-year BA student at Zakir Hussain College and he also works at a chemist shop at Shahdara. We had to create an account and I wanted a name that would reflect our roots and connection with Delhi 6; that is how we chose Zaika Dilli 6.

Only Saquib, my daughter Arfa and I knew about our initiative. Initially, we didn’t tell my husband about it; he was not too comfortable with the posting things on the internet. My husband is a scrap dealer near Dilli Gate. We would lock our windows and doors while recording, so that no one would come to know. Where we stay, we can see into our neighbour’s houses. We had to extremely careful because we were experimenting; if it failed, we wouldn’t tell anyone.

A year ago, we would shoot in our small kitchen. Only one person can stand in there; my son would be standing near the kitchen door to shoot these videos. But, our channel gained popularity in five months. Officials from YouTube called us to say that we had earned ₹28,000 and they needed my bank account details. At that time, I didn’t even have a bank account. So, I had to tell about the channel to my husband. He didn’t understand how it functioned, but we needed the money. And since then, almost every month they have been sending my earnings. Some months it goes upto ₹60,000. After a few months, we told some of our extended family members. Even now, our neighbours don’t know about our venture.

We began at the rock bottom, when we couldn’t afford the expensive utensils and we weren’t even sure the plan will take off. If you compare the videos we shot a year ago and now, you’ll see the change in utensils and location. Just a few months ago, we bought a table and set it in the room just outside the kitchen and now we shoot the videos in that room. We were able to buy a bigger refrigerator and change a few things at home.

I’m able to save some of the money; my husband and son are working and should continue to do so. We would like to save some money to able to move from here.