The grandmothers hitting patriarchy and weights

Period blood is the only blood that does not flow because of violence. “Still, society despises that blood the most.” Savitri Hooda, 65, speaks straight into her phone camera, standing under a neem tree in her home’s backyard. That video, shot from Rohtak’s Mungan village, 70 km north-west of Delhi, got 19,000 ‘likes’ on Instagram.

In another reel, she looks at the camera and calls her own generation “shoddy”. “Should I list their misdeeds? They killed daughters in the womb, discriminated against their own daughters, burnt their daughters-in-law for dowry, and leered at other women. They treated women as second-class citizens and now cannot stand their freedom.” That got her 4,87,000 likes and a whole lot of comments from people showering love on “Dadi”.

Savitri Hooda

Savitri Hooda | Video Credit: The Hindu

Welcome to @tai_savitri’s month-old Instagram account, which has just 27 posts but 3,08,000 followers. Her bio says: “Desi feminist from Haryana. Freedom and unfiltered opinions.”

The overwhelming response to her profile has been startling even for the family. Her son, Ashish, recalls receiving the first podcast invitation when Savitri had around 3,000 followers. After her video on mental health went viral last month, interview requests began pouring in.

Across the National Capital Region (NCR), women over 60 are putting their voices out on social media. They are singing, dancing, and giving out wisdom that the youth is lapping up.

The irreverent feminist

For Savitri, speaking her mind is hardly new. The rebellious streak that now finds an audience online surfaced when she was a schoolgirl. She dropped out in Class 7 after her mother, whom she describes as “very conservative”, refused to let her participate in a school play about dowry and opposed her taking up judo as well. “She thought it would disgrace the family. So I quit my studies in protest,” Savitri says.

It is a decision she still regrets.

Her formal education may have ended early, but Ashish says his mother has always been receptive to new ideas. She listens, reflects, and frequently brings her own observations into discussions, sometimes surprising the family with the connections she makes.

Her curiosity has also translated into considerable digital independence. Savitri records and uploads videos, manages her YouTube account and responds to comments herself. She uses the voice-to-text tool because it is faster than entering text manually. “If someone writes in English and I cannot understand the comment, I reply, ‘Thank you for sharing your views’,” she says.

To meet her is to meet an anti-influencer. She sits cross-legged on a bed in a dimly lit room, plaster peeling off its green-painted walls. Clothes hang shabbily on pegs. Ashish, an aspiring stand-up comic and novelist, leaning against a pillow beside her. She asks her husband to make three cups of tea. “What is the point in talking about feminism if I cannot finish patriarchy at my own house?” she says, chuckling.

Her social media journey started as a son’s sentimental plan during COVID-19. “He said it would preserve my memories. That the children could watch their grandmother singing folk songs when they grew up,” Savitri says, as her grandson sits by her. “I was fond of singing, so I agreed. That channel, ‘Yo Apna Haryana’, renamed ‘Tai Savitri’, now has 3,31,000 subscribers and 14,000 videos. But singing felt hollow after her singing partner lost her 28-year-old son in an accident. So she quit.

“When the singing stopped, we had to think about what to do next,” says Ashish, who has a postgraduate degree in Zoology. The answer emerged from conversations at home.

Ashish had developed an interest in theatre, philosophy, and psychology over the years. So, discussions about ideas and society were a regular feature of family life.

Ashish says that he does not quote philosophers word for word to his mother. Instead, he translates them into everyday language, allowing discussions to unfold at home over days or even weeks before they eventually find expression in a video.

It led to her creating videos on feminism and against social evils.

Bertrand Russell’s proposition that people should need a licence to become parents, for instance, prompted a conversation that led to one of Savitri’s most-watched videos on parenting. At other times, the starting point is something she observes in society or among people around her. “The videos are not scripted. If I get her to deliver it as a script, she won’t be able to speak with the same conviction,” says the 27-year-old.

After a mental health video went viral, the family received an anonymous call from a man who threatened to kill Savitri. “That was the first time I was genuinely frightened,” says Ashish.

Her criticism of local godmen in her videos has also drawn displeasure. The backlash has not been confined to anonymous callers. A khap leader once called on his father, Bijender Singh Hooda, to complain. “He said my father had removed the nath — the nose rope — from his wife. He was comparing a woman to an animal controlled by a nose rope,” he says.

Savitri, meanwhile, draws inspiration from watching godman-philosopher Osho and civil services exam coach Vikas Divyakirti. Her subjects have expanded from feminism to mental health and Gen Z, but Ashish says there is no deliberate strategy behind the transition. The themes emerge naturally from what they see and discuss around them. But she is not done. “Whether people throw flowers at me or slippers, I am going to debut as a stand-up comedian soon. My son is writing it for me,” she announces. And she wants a passport stamp. “I have seen enough of Haryana, now I want to go abroad. I don’t have money. If someone sponsors me, I would like to travel to Australia and the U.S.,” she says, deadpan.

The dancing dadi

More than 100 km from Savitri Hooda’s village in Rohtak, in a crowded lane of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, Birvati, 85, another woman is blowing up the idea of age-appropriate. Yellow tee, brown pants, two pigtails, the unlettered dadi (paternal grandmother) breaks into a Haryanvi pop number —‘Mera Balam Thanedar’— with the energy of a teenager.

She has 5,36,000 views with just that one video. Her handle on Instagram, dadi_comedy_63, has 230 posts and is less than a year old, with 1,16,000 followers already. Her son Kiranpal sells artificial jewellery, at weekly markets. These days, he says, the market comes to them. “People now recognise her. When we go to the market, people come and sit beside her and say, ‘Amma, look how well your videos are doing!’ There is so much excitement. People ask her, ‘Amma, where did you learn all this? You do it so well!’” he says, proudly.

Birvati, with white hair and wrinkled skin, plays humble, but knows her influence. “I don’t like praising myself, but there is hardly anyone who has not seen my videos. People, not just in India, but even abroad are getting to know me,” she says with a toothless grin.

“Women my age tell me, ‘Amma, you have done something remarkable at this age. You have made a name!’” she adds.

Her granddaughter Neha says people are pulled in by her energy.

“The dance moves she does are rare for people her age. Most people are fascinated by her energy,” says the 20-year-old, who is Birvati’s choreographer, costume designer, and editor. “She wears different outfits for songs, rarely a sari. She experiments with hairstyles, and even asks me, ‘Can I go out wearing jeans?’”

Birvati

Birvati | Video Credit: The Hindu

But this wasn’t supposed to be Birvati’s channel. It was Neha’s. She has a degree in optometry and wanted to create online content. Her parents said no, afraid of facing a problem finding groom for a girl who is popular online. So Neha brought in her grandmother, who had been the life and soul of every family wedding in her youth, to dance with her. They started in December last year, with a YouTube channel called ‘Neha Panchal’, posting dance and humorous videos, both dadi and granddaughter in frame. Their first video got a like from singer Neha Kakkar. That was enough to keep going. Instagram came a month later. And it exploded. Younger audience, more likes, more engagement. “Whenever I tell her we are shooting, she gets ready an hour in advance. She is more excited than I am. She gets dressed on her own. Sometimes she chooses the song herself. Some videos on the rooftop, some in the park outside, and some on the middle floor. I have decorated a corner for this,” Neha says.

“In the beginning, the comments were brutal. “At this age, do bhajans, not dances. Go to the temple,” people wrote. Neha’s batchmates laughed at her, saying she was unnecessarily dragging her grandmother in. She ignored them. Now the whole family is involved. Neha’s mother, Poonam, once hooked to Hindi novels, is the scriptwriter for their comedy sketches. “She reads stories, watches things, and comes up with ideas.” Older sister Riya also pops in.

Birvati wants to contribute financially. Neha says Punjabi singers have approached them for paid promotions, but the income is still small and unsteady. But Birvati wants to grow into her newfound career and make her own songs. “I want a role in a Haryanvi music video,” she says.

Dare to deadlift

Cut from a 50 sq. ft. house in Ghaziabad to a plush plotted house in South City-I, Gurugram. Amrit Kaur, 75, sits gracefully on a beige tufted sofa, hands folded neatly in her lap, composed, almost stern. Four years ago, she could barely walk. “I have always been strong. But four years ago, I became seriously ill. I was very weak, and was admitted in hospital,” she recalls. “I thought I would recover in a few days, but the weakness was considerable.” Today she does an hour of strength training at 4 a.m. every day.

She can do a dozen push-ups.

Her Instagram handle, @getfitwithdadi, has just 40 posts, 17,000 followers and a video with 80 lakh views. Her son, Aminder Singh, sits beside her. In his early 50s, Singh is the founder of Team Aminder, and has been training people for 30 years, with clients in 42 countries. “She was very weak after hospital. But I used to tell her, ‘Mummy, you are very strong,’” he says.

Amrit Kaur

Amrit Kaur | Video Credit: The Hindu

He made her start small. Tie a rope between door frames. Pull it. Do a squat. Again.

“At first, I could do very little. But slowly, I began to feel that I was regaining some strength,” Amrit says, who was reluctant to start.

Amrit begins her day at 3 or 3:30 a.m. with prayers. “Then I begin exercising,” she says. “I keep chanting ‘Waheguru, Satnam, Waheguru, Satnam’ as I squat. My prayers and exercise go on together. Gradually, I increased the time. Now I exercise for an hour.”

Commentaires pour in. “You have done something wonderful, Dadi! You are amazing!” says one. She reads them, but doesn’t reply. “I feel particularly happy when others imitate me. I feel the exercises I do are useful to others,” she says. At the nearby gurdwara, devotees now recognise her as: “Arre, video wali dadi (Oh, the grandmother from the video)!” Taking a cue from Amrit, Aminder’s mother-in-law Deepa Bindra has started her own handle @getfitwithnaani, with seven posts and 3,916 followers already. Amrit has a message that isn’t about protein: “Exercise is effective only if we are happy.”

ashok.kumar@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Amarjot Kaur and Sunalini Mathew