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Content is queen: Meet Dharna Durga and laugh along with the world she sees
Social media star Dharna Durga is 22 and navigating fame one step at a time, but she knows exactly where she’s going
At 22, most Indians worry about life, how their career might shape up, and what to do next. Dharna Durga worries about keeping her 300K Instagram followers hooked, which posts will resonate most with people, and how to balance brand integration with a platform that is all about authentic engagement.
In most of her sketch videos and Reels, Durga (@dharnaaaaa) plays characters that might seem familiar: the relative, filmi stepdaughters and bhaiya-bhabhis. She knows a cliché when she sees one. Check out Every Bollywood Gossip Video Ever. She plans and shoots her videos at her home in Delhi. They’re low-budget, but high-impact.
Dharna is like thousands of comic hopefuls online. But she’s broken through because her work is straightforward and funny. She finds humour where others don’t: Every Beauty Parlour Aunty Ever, Every Chemist Shop Visit, Every Sibling Ever, That One Friend On Every Trip, Hair Oil Ads Be Like, Every Lawyer in ‘90s Bollywood Films, or Every Mom During Diwali. And she’s committed to every role.
Take it from the top
Durga was studying at Delhi University when her story really started. Confused about whether to join the dance group or the theatre society, she figured theatre would give her the opportunity to sing, dance and act. “I realised that while I enjoy dancing, I love acting even more,” Durga says, enthusiastically. She says everything enthusiastically. It’s clear that she’s excited about the videos she makes.
The pandemic put pause to campus life. It also left Durga with all that energy and no creative outlet. So, she and her friends would send each other video challenges, clips of themselves acting out different characters while stuck at home. Hers ended up being especially funny – and her friends urged her to post them to Instagram. “I wasn’t even on social media back then. I felt it was a waste of time, posting Stories every day and what not,” Durga says, giggling.
But she did end up publishing her first video in May 2020. “It was me as a character called Bubble, quarantined at home, watching TV, playing Ludo – an entire day’s routine,” she recalls. It did well enough that she kept sharing more clips.
Then, one post, a 30-second expectations vs reality video about dancing at a wedding, went viral. Fashion stylist Komal Pandey shared it, giving Durga’s following a shot in the arm. It racked up over 25 lakh views. “Comedy influencer Kusha Kapila left a comment, too,” she says. Durga realised she had cracked it.
But her biggest success so far has been her March 2023 Reel, Every Dance Teacher Ever, which has about 1.5 million views and over 9 lakh likes. Actor Deepika Padukone recently posted it to her own Stories, captioning it: “This is my life right now”.
Keeping it real
That is a sentiment that echoes throughout her comment sections. Her jokes land because she keeps them simple and accessible. Audiences scrolling through can identify with the tropes in Every Punjabi Mom, Every Security Guard in Bollywood Movies or Every Bus Conductor Ever.
“Everyone has something in common, everyone is observing the same things,” Durga says. “I try to keep my content as desi as possible so I can reach as wide an audience as I can.
She shot one Reel, Delhi Aunties in Winter, with a group of aunties in a park, lending the sketch an authentic feel even as it celebrated the stereotype. Every Page 3 Journalist in Bollywood Movies got her a thumbs up from Fashion, Heroine and Page 3 filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar. She shot Desi Moms Travelling in Trains on a train, earning appreciation from actor Aparshakti Khurana.
“Everywhere I look, I see characters,” Durga says. “When I see someone and think, ‘Hey this is something I could imitate,’ I go home and think about how I can turn that into a Reel.”
This possibly stems from a childhood habit. “Whenever I would go watch a movie, I would come straight back home and act out the characters I’d seen on screen. Or, if I met someone who had an interesting way of speaking or was slightly different, I’d mimic them in front of my friends,” she says. “Now, I have a platform to do the same thing, and it’s so many different people watching. That’s the only difference.”
With fame have come brand partnerships and advertising, which often kills the mood on social media. Durga has managed to seamlessly slip in promotions. In her clip Every Self-Proclaimed Fortune Teller Aunty, she weaves in a basmati rice brand sponsor so deftly, the fans laud how she pulled it off in the comments. “I only partner with brands that give me the creative flexibility to be myself, 100%,” she says. “Some people only want ads or 15 seconds of just their product to be shown. I’ve had to say no to them,” she reveals.
Durga says she started out posing videos for fun. “I never expected that I’d blow up like this,” she says. It doesn’t stop her from getting a little starstruck every now and again. “When I see a comment or a repost from someone I really like or admire, I go running to my mom to show her,” she says, laughing.
She’s still slowly getting used to the fact that people now recognise her when she’s out in the mall, nudge their friends when they see her or approach her for pictures. But it’s something she’ll have to get used to quickly, if she wants to realise her eventual dream.
“Acting,” she says firmly. “I want to make it as an actor.”
PAVING THE WAY: These women digital creators did it first
Srishti Dixit
@srishtipatch
The entertainment reporter and content creator for Buzzfeed India is now an established content creator in her own right, Srishti finds humour in almost any situation (even What to Do When A Ghost is Haunting You) and uses that to her advantage. Her other advantage: a cat. Patches features in many of her Reels.
Kusha Kapila
@kushakapila
From playing Bili Maasi and South Delhi Aunty to creating Guru Maa, Coco Bhaiya, Sunita and many more now-beloved characters, Kapila has featured on Netflix’s Masaba Masaba. She still regularly posts Reels such as Me Lying To My Friend’s Parents Like A Pro. If you like Kusha, consider following Dolly Singh, too, whose characters South Delhi girl, Raju Ki Mummy and Guddu Aunty are hilarious, too.
Anisha Dixit
@anishadixit
Older fans know this German-Indian comedian and digital creator by her previous handle: Rickshawali. Her clips look at relationships, husbands, parents, sex education, and cultural differences, sometimes with fun surprise guests like John Abraham and Tiger Shroff.
Shraddha Jain
@aiyyoshraddha
Bengaluru-based Jain, posts videos in Kannada, Hindi, English, Marathi, and Tulu, and switches between characters, languages and voices. She keeps a sharp eye on the news. Remember that clip she did about mass layoffs in the tech sector earlier this year?
