Masala mayo with touch of wasabi…

Mayo Japan, a YouTuber who introduces Japanese culture in Hindi and teaches the Japanese language. PIC/X/@mayo_hindi

Mayo Japan', I suspect, has an on-off button in her head. Once you switch on the video camera, pointing it towards her, she herself switches on, almost simultaneously!

It's probably a personality type. And it's her YouTube personality that she promptly shares on my video, adorably gesturing with her hands to introduce herself first: "Namaste, mein Hindi bolne wali Japani ladki hoon…
(I'm a Hindi-speaking Japanese girl…)."

That's precisely who Mayo is - while I joke that her Hindi is indeed better than many Indians I know, in Mumbai (particularly South Mumbai).

But she's also an Internet sensation in India, from Japan, wherein the ‘like, share, subscribe' buttons on her viral videos inevitably run into several millions! Why so?

Because through social media shorts/videos of Indian cooking, travelling, dancing, chatting up desi celebrities, like the film stars of RRR, NTR Jr, Ram Charan - she might be acquainting Japanese viewers to Indian pop-culture. She ends up immeasurably endearing Indians, instead!

As the young, chirpy Mayo (pronounced maa-yo) Japan née Hitoni tell me - all of this started, just like that!

She'd finished school with no idea about what to do next. Her dad, who used to regularly trek in the Himalayas and was fond of India, suggested, "Since you have no [career] plans anyway, why don't you just study Hindi? You'll enjoy it."

"Mazaa ayega," as Mayo recalls it. She enrolled for BA in Hindi at Osaka University. Upon graduation, took up a "boring corporate job" at the consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC).

In order to remain in touch with the language still, she began to upload "vyakaran"/grammar videos teaching Hindi to Japanese folks online. This is how her YouTube journey began in January, 2017.

As per the last estimate, YouTube, the world's second most visited website (after Google) has 80 billion videos uploaded since it launched in 2005. There's evidently an onscreen jungle out there.

My sense with YouTubers is if they consistently post videos - often, over time, something or the other clicks, anywhere on a scale that peaks at Justin Bieber. There's that pivotal moment, when they break into their chosen niche, eventually.

With Mayo, this pivot happened about three months after her first post: "I was making meaningful videos [until then]," but there aren't that many Japanese takers for Hindi learning.

There are enough Indians in Japan, who play Holi, though. Mayo recorded those celebrations, with her in it, in March, 2017.

And, boom, her online profile had exploded in India - "video phat gaya," as desi YouTubers term this phenomenon. She was struck by the "adrenaline rush." Three years later, she quit her job at PWC to pursue her hobby as a full-time profession.

This includes dancing to mainly Telugu/Tamil tracks: "Yup, that's 60-70 per cent [of the songs]," Mayo tells me. Which I find odd, since Hindi is her spoken language.

"This is because South Indian films have been popular in Japan since [Rajinikanth's] Muthu (1995). Baahubali was a super-hit. RRR was a mega, pan-Japan hit! People love the energy of South Indian songs."

My favorite Mayo clip is where she explains the difference between sticking your pinky-finger out, in Japan, and in India. I get her to explain again. In Japan, it signifies going to be with your lover! In India, it means going to take a leak.

Public loos, by the way, is the big distinction she makes between India and Japan. Mayo says, "We consider cleaning toilets at home the same as cleaning our minds. In Japan, you'll find the cleanest toilets, no matter where; on the highways, in the villages… In India, not always so."

Think German master Wim Wenders's meditative Japanese film, Perfect Days (2023)!

Mayo frequently travels across India, chiefly creating content; "mostly solo-trips." But her Japanese friends equally seek her out to travel with to India.

An enduring image of Japanese global tourists is usually of a large, quiet group that huddles around a guide holding a placard.

"Japanese people are shy. Unlike Indians, who are overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming," Mayo points out, like a quasi-insider.

As travelling companions go, you probably can't find a better Japanese than the forever chatty, cutesy Mayo in India - who won't just show you around, but will also have desi fans/followers clicking selfies with her, as she swiftly navigates crowded streets.

Mayo, of course, is not the only such foreign content-creator to become a celebrity through YouTube in India. I enjoy the Caucasian, American ‘Bihari', Drew Hicks (‘India Drew'), equally.

Mayo names many others, such as ‘40 Kahani' from Korea who, like Drew, has a thick Bihari accent; or other Koreans, ‘Aoora', ‘Korean Dost'; or Mayo's own part-time dancing partner from Japan, ‘Kaketaku'.

She's clear about one thing, though: "Some [foreign YouTubers] see India as passion. Some as merely population." As in, easy market for likes/shares/subscriptions. The latter don't make it in the long run.

It's the same with art, isn't it? And in its own way, what's any content, if not art, anyway.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture.
He tweets@mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.