LUCKNOW: English Vinglish – rural Uttar Pradesh style. Yashodha Lodhi (29) is a YouTuber with nearly 2.9 lakh subscribers and 2.6 crore views. Her USP? Teaching spoken English. Lodhi, a resident of SirathuKaushambi ticks no boxes metropolitan types would assume needs ticking to teach English.
Her elocution won’t pass muster in a city private school, and her life is textbook of rural misfortune – given away as a girl child to a relative by her parents, patchy schooling till class 12, married to a daily wager, who was robbed temporarily off his earning capacity by an accident, family saddled with a bank loan that paid for her husband’s medical care.But this doughty, self-taught young woman, thanks to her 368 instruction videos, all shot with her ghunghat in place, has thousands of loyal followers. And although she’s a relative newbie, having started in May last year, she brings in around Rs 25,000 a month for her family, a sum that means a great deal more in rural UP than in cities.
Lodhi also has a great sense of branding. Embracing her social reality and using it as a pull, she calls her YouTube channel ‘English With Dehati Madam’.
Madam has a keen understanding of pedagogic fundamentals. Her videos have titles like ‘How to create an English-speaking environment’, ‘Is grammar important?’, ‘Idiom…cut to the chase’, ‘Mistakes. Have a fear of making mistakes’.
In one of her videos ‘How to think in English’, Lodhi says the issue for many people is that they don’t think in English before speaking it, so “fluency gets lost in translation”. She then explains how she mastered the art of ‘thinking in English’.
“You must develop the habit of reading books, it’s the key for fluency in English. After this video, I’m 100% sure that your inclination for reading will substantially grow,” Lodhi tells her ‘students’. Often, her lessons are from a slice of life. ‘Conversation between two neighbours’ and some are made for just fun, like ‘My lovely sasu maa celebrating Diwali’.
Lodhi’s income has helped pay the bank loan, and it supplements her husband Radhey’s income. Radhey’s accident and the financial shock that came with it were the triggers for Lodhi’s YouTube venture.
She started with channels on desi cooking, embroidery and decoration. “None worked out,” she says. Not one to give up, she spent hours on the internet learning about content creation, video editing and ways to gain online traction.
“In early 2022, I came across several motivational speakers fluent in English, which gave me the idea to be a motivational ‘dehati’ speaker who can communicate in English. So, I taught myself English and used my dehati identity to gain viewership”.
Her one regret? Few in her own village, Dhumai Lodhan Ka Purvaseem interested. She only has a handful of local followers.
“In my village, women laugh watching me speak English. They neither have any interest in learning the language, or in letting their daughters learn it”.
She’s had more impact at home. “My sisters-in-law are interested in learning the language,” she says.
As family role models go, Yashodha Lodhi is a tough act to beat.
Her elocution won’t pass muster in a city private school, and her life is textbook of rural misfortune – given away as a girl child to a relative by her parents, patchy schooling till class 12, married to a daily wager, who was robbed temporarily off his earning capacity by an accident, family saddled with a bank loan that paid for her husband’s medical care.But this doughty, self-taught young woman, thanks to her 368 instruction videos, all shot with her ghunghat in place, has thousands of loyal followers. And although she’s a relative newbie, having started in May last year, she brings in around Rs 25,000 a month for her family, a sum that means a great deal more in rural UP than in cities.
Lodhi also has a great sense of branding. Embracing her social reality and using it as a pull, she calls her YouTube channel ‘English With Dehati Madam’.
Madam has a keen understanding of pedagogic fundamentals. Her videos have titles like ‘How to create an English-speaking environment’, ‘Is grammar important?’, ‘Idiom…cut to the chase’, ‘Mistakes. Have a fear of making mistakes’.
In one of her videos ‘How to think in English’, Lodhi says the issue for many people is that they don’t think in English before speaking it, so “fluency gets lost in translation”. She then explains how she mastered the art of ‘thinking in English’.
“You must develop the habit of reading books, it’s the key for fluency in English. After this video, I’m 100% sure that your inclination for reading will substantially grow,” Lodhi tells her ‘students’. Often, her lessons are from a slice of life. ‘Conversation between two neighbours’ and some are made for just fun, like ‘My lovely sasu maa celebrating Diwali’.
Lodhi’s income has helped pay the bank loan, and it supplements her husband Radhey’s income. Radhey’s accident and the financial shock that came with it were the triggers for Lodhi’s YouTube venture.
She started with channels on desi cooking, embroidery and decoration. “None worked out,” she says. Not one to give up, she spent hours on the internet learning about content creation, video editing and ways to gain online traction.
“In early 2022, I came across several motivational speakers fluent in English, which gave me the idea to be a motivational ‘dehati’ speaker who can communicate in English. So, I taught myself English and used my dehati identity to gain viewership”.
Her one regret? Few in her own village, Dhumai Lodhan Ka Purvaseem interested. She only has a handful of local followers.
“In my village, women laugh watching me speak English. They neither have any interest in learning the language, or in letting their daughters learn it”.
She’s had more impact at home. “My sisters-in-law are interested in learning the language,” she says.
As family role models go, Yashodha Lodhi is a tough act to beat.