When you search for a recipe for a desi dish on YouTube, like curries and pakodas, chances are that the platform will recommend a video by a channel called ‘Kabita’s Kitchen’. Run by a woman named Kabita Singh, ‘Kabita’s Kitchen’ today has over 13 million followers – a remarkable feat for any YouTuber.
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In a conversation with Slurrp, Kabita revealed that her passion for cooking sparked when she was very young, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, while helping her mother in the kitchen. She experienced great joy while stirring the food when her mother got busy doing other household chores. She watched her mother creatively experiment with various recipes – a quality that Kabita picked up later in life.
In 2009, Kabita shifted to the UK after her marriage. Having left her job in India, she found her passion for cooking reignited when she prepared various dishes for her husband. In 2014, they shifted back to India and after her son started going to school, she found that she had adequate free time on her hands. So she started cooking, experimenting and coming up with recipes for her family.
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In November 2014, she started her YouTube channel ‘Kabita’s Kitchen’ and posted everyday simple recipes. However, it wasn’t until her 89th video, in which she shared the recipe for bread gulab jamun, that her channel gained popularity. It was her 89th video that attracted millions of views and steadily, after posting videos consistently for 3 years, she finally hit the 1 million subscribers mark in 2017, reported News18. It’s been an uphill journey ever since then.
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But Kabita Singh never thought that her channel would be as popular as it is today. In fact, online fame and millions of subscribers weren’t something that she was chasing. So much so, that after 3 months of hard work initially, her channel got monetized. Her first earning from her channel was 1 US dollar. She was so happy that she threw a pizza party for her friends!
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Kabita’s journey is a reminder that social media and other online platforms can change a person’s life and it is never too late to start following your true passion.