Shivani Kumari with her mother Rani Kushwaha. (YouTube)
Shivani Kumari, with her success as a Youtuber, influencer, actor and an internet sensation, and now on Big Boss OTT 3, has finally given the family enough reasons to be proud of her. News18 speaks to her mother Rani Kushwaha
Shivani Kumari’s mother, Rani Kushwaha, cried when she was born. For Kushwaha, wife of Ram Siyani Kushwaha, an indebted farmer from Ariyari, one of the most backward villages of Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Auraiya, a girl child meant deeper despair. However, Shivani, with her success as a Youtuber, influencer, actor and an internet sensation, and now on Big Boss OTT 3, has finally given the family enough reasons to be proud of her.
Speaking to News18, Kushwaha said her daughter’s entry in the show, hosted by actor Anil Kapoor, stands testimony to their rags to riches story. “Girls in our village are considered a liability. As I already had three daughters, I wanted a boy. I remember crying on Shivani’s birth. Those were the hard times, I can’t describe in words. I was left all alone to take care of four daughters and an ailing husband. There were instances when we used to sell household goods to buy flour,” said Kushwaha.
Kushwaha said she could not send two of her daughters to school due to lack of money. “Things became all the more difficult for us when my husband passed away. I used to work at a local hospital to meet the family’s financial needs. There were times when the family members had to hide under a tarpaulin to stay dry in the rainy season,” said Kushwaha.
She said after her husband’s death, a relative hatched a conspiracy to grab the ancestral agricultural land. “They used to say what will you do with a land when you don’t have a boy. We lodged a case, but pursuing it was a task, given the dearth of money,” she added.
Kushwaha said Shivani grew up braving all odds, and perhaps it’s her never-say-die spirit which brought her success. “Shivani entered the world of social media in 2019. She bought a smartphone from her savings. She started making TikTok videos first. I remember how she used to make the videos secretly and used to post them on social media,” she said.
Even that was not easy. The moment Shivani’s videos went online, the villagers started complaining to that the girl was “going out of hand, and would defame the village one day”. “Going by the words of the villagers, we beat up Shivani that day. This was the second time since her birth that I regretted it. But I gradually realized my daughter’s interest in it and then didn’t stop her,” she said.
Kushwaha said Shivani’s videos depict her jovial nature and rural life. She became famous for her style of saying ‘hi friends’ in local dialect. She used to address her fans with the opening line – “Hi frienda.” Shivani’s ‘desi lifestyle’ and down-to-earth nature are famous among netizens. Shivani’s Tik Tok account had 3.9 million followers. When TikTok got banned in India, she had to switch to other social media platforms.
But her consistent hard work ensured her fan base grew. Shivani’s Instagram followers rose to 2.4 million, she runs two YouTube channels named Shivani kumari official with 1.23 million subscribers, and 197,776,550 views, while her other YouTube channel RS Music with 330k subscribers, and 146,824,239 views.
Of the many videos, which gained unprecedented popularity among netizens, the one video which Kushwaha believes shot Shivani to limelight was the one in which she could be seen assuring the family members that she would bring slippers for all as many of her family members.
Kushwaha said despite being the youngest, Shivani took care of the entire family. “She got three of her sisters married. She cleared the long-pending debt, got her ancestral land freed from mortgage, built a house with her own income. Today we have the biggest house in the village. She also owns a series of cars,” she said.
Kushwaha, who is on cloud nine since Shivani made it to Big Boss OTT3, said every girl in her village sees Shivani as their role model.
Before going inside the house, she had made a group video call to everyone to seek blessings. Rani says that although Shivani is a calm and jovial, it often becomes very difficult to handle her if something instigates her. “I wonder how my gaon ki chhori would handle the stress of being inside a Big Boss house. I pray that she doesn’t fight,” she added.