Clad in a red sari, hair liberally streaked with grey, and with her nose in everybody's business, Anu Aunty is the bane of every youngster’s life. She thinks, “An engineering-degree means... good wife.” And so she will say anything to convince you to give up any ideas of entrepreneurship and settle for a stable job: only as a doctor or engineer, of course.
Based on Varun Agarwal's book How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company, the YouTube video >‘Anu Aunty — The Engineering Anthem’ , published on the channel The Enthu Cutlets, has gone viral. Started by Varun, the channel aims to showcase the best of comedians in Bangalore.
“Anu Aunty was a great figurehead to start the channel off with. I was one of the first YouTube partners in India, but stopped a few years ago to run my company. The idea is to create content that makes people laugh and also has a message. If it comes with a global reach as well, that’s great,” says Varun.
The song, which is a parody of Iggy Azalea's Fancy, has garnered close to 5,70,000 views on YouTube and another 4,00,000 on Facebook. The comments speak for the worldwide appeal. Mexicans, Chinese, Pakistanis and Indonesians, among other nationalities, seem to identify with the pressure to choose these particular courses and the discouragement expressed by parents when children want to do something different.
“I hope students take a cue from this and break out of the mould. What India needs is an entrepreneur revolution. Parents don’t know any better. Some of them are too lazy to find out. The fact is that a professional photographer now earns more than someone in IT. They need to get informed. Students should introspect on what they want, take risks and follow their passion,” says Varun.
Varun adds, “We thought we would do decently well, but not this well! Considering that we released the video just around the New Year, it’s a great number of views. The validation also came from the International coverage we got. Yes, it’s frivolous; yes, it’s funny and juvenile in a sense, but it’s relatable.”
Apart from this, he credits the success to the quality of the video shot by Sam Mohan, who also co-directed with Varun, the lyrics by Sanjay Manaktala and Anu Aunty, played by Sumukhi Suresh (who carries off the hat emblazoned with SWAG in gold very well indeed).
With more videos lined up, Varun says The Enthu Cutlets channel “will not cater to the lowest common denominator, but now that they are established, will put out content that everyone will know and understand.”
