When Clay Pots Meet Content Creation – The Usha Bishoyi Story
In a small corner of rural West Medinipur, where dirt roads meet paddy fields and life moves to the rhythm of the seasons, a 48-year-old homemaker decided to share what she had always known-the art of cooking Bengali food the way her grandmother taught her. Usha Bishoyi, the woman behind the wildly popular social media channel Oldays Kitchen, had no idea that her simple kitchen would become a digital shrine for millions craving authenticity in an age of Instagram-perfect aesthetics.
What makes Usha’s journey remarkable isn’t just the numbers-though crossing 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 1.5 million followers on Facebook is no small feat. It’s the way she reminds us that food is more than sustenance. It’s poetry, memory, and connection wrapped in the aroma of mustard oil and fresh posto.
The Chhora That Started It All
Every Oldays Kitchen video begins the same way. Usha, dressed in a simple cotton sari worn in the traditional Bengali aatpoure style, stands before her audience and recites a chhora-a short, playful rhyme in Bengali. These aren’t fancy verses. They’re the kind of rhymes your grandmother might make up while stirring a pot, whimsical and warm, instantly transporting you to childhood kitchens where cooking was never just cooking.
This signature element sets Oldays Kitchen apart in a sea of cooking channels. While others focus on precision and perfection, Usha offers something more human: the joy of cooking without pretense. And at the end of each recipe, after tasting her creation, she exclaims her signature line: “Daruunnn!” It’s infectious.
From Mohanpur to Millions
Usha got married young and has been a homemaker ever since, rooted in Mohanpur, a small town in West Medinipur district. For decades, her cooking was known only to her family. But in March 2023, she started Oldays Kitchen-and within months, the channel exploded.
By July 2023, she had already crossed 100,000 subscribers and received YouTube’s Silver Creator Award. Today, Oldays Kitchen has grown to 3.5 million YouTube subscribers, with an estimated 1.85 billion total video views. Her Facebook page boasts over 1.3 million followers, and her Instagram audience has grown to nearly 600,000.
Cooking with Culture, Not Just Ingredients
What Usha does is present rare and rural Bengali recipes in ASMR-inspired cooking videos. Her focus is laser-sharp: old-school rural Bengali dishes prepared with very few ingredients, minimal spices, and hardly any oil. From Narkel Posto Bora to Googli (shellfish recipes), from Ilish Bhapa steamed in banana leaves to village-style mutton curry, Usha’s repertoire is both nostalgic and educational.
These are dishes that grandmothers made but rarely wrote down-recipes that were disappearing as families moved to cities. Her videos are shot simply, often outdoors or in her modest kitchen, with natural light and the sounds of rural life in the background. There’s no fancy equipment, no elaborate setups. Just Usha, her ingredients, and the kind of cooking that feels like home.
A Community Built on Nostalgia
As Usha’s popularity soared, major brands began to notice. She has collaborated with companies like Daawat, OPPO, Hoichoi, Emami, Atomberg, Go Cheese, India Today, and Pigeon. She also appeared on Zee Bangla’s Rannaghar cooking show, cementing her status as a beloved figure in Bengali food culture.
But what truly makes Oldays Kitchen special is how it transcends language barriers. The emotion behind her cooking is universal. She personifies the simplicity and genuine love of food that mothers and grandmothers have brought us up with. Watching her cook feels less like consuming content and more like sitting in your grandmother’s kitchen, learning recipes that were never meant to be written down.
Staying Rooted While Reaching Millions
For a woman who got married young and spent decades as a homemaker, this journey has been transformative. But what’s truly inspiring is that Usha hasn’t tried to become someone she’s not. She hasn’t moved to the city or hired a production team. She’s stayed in Mohanpur, stayed true to her roots, and shown that authenticity is the most powerful currency in the digital age.
Her story is a reminder that you don’t need fancy equipment or formal training to create something meaningful. You just need something worth sharing and the courage to share it. In Usha’s case, that something is the soul of Bengali home cooking-passed down through generations, flavored with love, and now reaching millions through the magic of the internet.
In her kitchen, every recipe is a story. Every chhora is an invitation. And every “Daruunnn!” is a celebration of life’s simplest, most beautiful moments-the ones that happen when food, family, and tradition come together.
