Indian domestic cooks of the digital age

“Didi, what should I make tomorrow?” Tulsi calls out, untying the dupatta knotted around her waist while cooking. This is a customary question before she leaves for the day.

“I’ll message you later,” replies her employer Komal Shah, 37, a marketing professional.Tulsi, 26, relocated from Nepal to Bengaluru seven years ago. Now, she cooks at three houses daily, spending at least a couple of hours in each.

That evening, Shah sends her a WhatsApp voice note and a link, asking, “Can we make this tomorrow?” The link is for a YouTube recipe video on bisi bele bath, a spicy rice dish from Karnataka that Tulsi has never heard of. “The name itself is challenging,” she says.

She watches the video between dinner and chores, and again while walking to Shah’s house the next morning. “My WhatsApp has more cooking links than anything else,” Tulsi jokes, naming at least 10 dishes, from a Greek tomato and feta salad to an Italian marinara pasta, that she’s attempted in the last three months. | Photo Credit: Pratima Chabbi In the kitchen, Tulsi props her phone against a steel dabba and hits play.

As a voice lists the ingredients, she pauses the video, gathers the vegetables and spices, and then presses play again. This is her new normal. “My WhatsApp has more cooking links than anything else,” she jokes, naming at least 10 dishes — from a Greek tomato and feta salad, to a Keralan avial and an Italian marinara pasta — that she’s attempted in the last three months.

She follows a cooking video at least three times a week. “When someone stands beside you, there’s pressure. With a video, if something isn’t perfect, you can fix it the next time,” she adds.

Tulsi watching a recipe video | Video Credit: The Hindu Tulsi’s bisi bele bath reveals a bigger change happening across India’s kitchens. Recipes that once used to be shared with domestic cooks through in-person lessons, handwritten notes, TV shows and hours spent cooking together, now come as WhatsApp links, Instagram Reels, and YouTube videos. How Bhookle is turning India’s home cooks into a food delivery networkThe cooks watch, pause, replay and adapt these recipes, bringing new dishes into different homes and sometimes to their own families.

Most dishes they’ve never seen, let alone tasted, before. But they are enterprising — a cook from Odisha says she’s recently learnt khao suey from YouTube, another from Siliguri has mastered Turkish eggs. Elsewhere, cooks are trying shakshuka, Caesar salad, thecha prawns, cold soups, roast chicken, and pesto pasta.

Moni Bibi Khan in Bengaluru cookig from a recipe video. | Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain Inside the YouTube kitchenMoni Bibi Khan, 31, from West Bengal, has lived in Bengaluru since 2019 and worked for Gauri Chabbi, a 39-year-old banking professional for six years. She remembers when meals were more predictable.

“In the first year, didi stood with me in the kitchen, opening spice boxes and explaining what’s used in everyday Keralan and North Karnataka dishes,” says Khan. “She showed me how cooking curry leaves with a pinch of asafoetida creates a rich, savoury tempering.” Gauri Chabbi encourages her cook to try out different cuisines.

| Photo Credit: Special arrangement As the family’s tastes changed, Khan learnt to cook more dishes. “Now, at least five nights a week, they want something new. Last night, I made chicken chukauni, a Nepali dish didi had seen on Instagram.

This weekend, I will make egg fried rice and garlic vegetable stir-fry, which I’m an expert at now. I even learned stroganoff [the Russian dish usually made with beef and sour cream],” she says proudly. Even if the video is in English, Khan finds the visuals helpful.

“Once I see it, I understand. If I get stuck, I ask didi,” she says. Moni Bibi Khan has learnt to cook dishes such as stroganoff and chicken chukauni from recipe videos.

| Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain In Pune, Sejal Malavde, an HR professional, recalls how her cook, Dasni Devi, 35, introduced herself four years ago, saying, “I can learn to cook by watching YouTube videos.” One of Devi’s recent experiments was rice paper dumplings. After making them at work, she took the recipe home and made them for her 12-year-old son’s school tiffin.

“He loved it,” she says.For many employers, the willingness to learn from videos is now something they look for in a cook. Monica Shroff, 57, who works for an online gifting retail company in Mumbai, says her cook, Sunaina, 35, suggested that she share YouTube recipes with her because her repertoire was limited.

Shroff sends her links for fish curries, grills, smoothies, cold soups, and jowar roti.But learning isn’t always as easy as watching a video once and cooking the dish perfectly. Language can be a barrier.

In Kochi, Sumayya Sharaf, 37, sends recipes to her cook Tezal Thomas, 45, who has been with her family for nearly 18 years. Some videos are in English, while others are in languages neither of them understands. “Shorter videos are great for quick explanations,