Do you often think cooking a wholesome meal is an extensive, long-drawn process? Rajesh Rawani’s YouTube vlogs are a cogent argument. With 2.78 million subscribers and two million followers on Instagram, the truck driver is amassing love for his fun, quirky, and simple reels that showcase his life while on the road.
Improvisation seems like the main ingredient in Jharkhand-based Rajesh’s recipes. His truck doubles up as a tiny, creative kitchen where he whips up meals that are as comforting as they are creative.
Each dish is a celebration, a challenge of sorts, where the prize is a delicious plate of goodness.
Sharing that vlogging his daily routine was the brainchild of his children, Rajesh (48) says, it all started with him updating them about his whereabouts on WhatsApp. “I would keep sending them photos and videos of my routine tasks: unloading goods from the truck, putting simple ingredients together for lunch, and sometimes, trying to cook while in the middle of a forest.”
Rajesh (R) with his son Sagar (L) who accompanies his father, shooting and documenting his culinary expeditions.
In 2021, his eldest son, Sagar Rawani (26), decided to wager a bet on his father’s unique routine. He started a YouTube channel, R Rajesh Vlogs, and uploaded a few of these videos.
Rajesh Rawani is a truck driver and influencer who routinely shares fun videos on social media.
“Within a few weeks, the channel had 4,000 subscribers,” Sagar shares, adding that it took a couple of months for the number to touch a lakh.
“Vlogs were common even back then, but this was the first time people were able to see what a truck driver does. This was unique,” Sagar reasons, adding that, as the channel began to take off, he started accompanying his dad on his assignments, documenting the various aspects of his day.
“I get to tour the whole of India with dad,” he says, smiling.
Whipping up meals between the miles
The sound of honking, traffic, and city hustle is interspersed between the sizzling of onions as Rajesh makes a Bengali fish curry, detailing how the mustard paste needs to hug the caramelised onions evenly, before the marinated fish can be added in.
Cooking in a confined space (if you’ve seen how tiny the cab portion of a truck is, you’d empathise), far removed from the modernities of urban life, isn’t easy. But it’s adventurous, Rajesh’s vlogs prove.
His five-kilogram stove gas is versatile and efficient, whether he decides to cook inside the truck or in the open, with the trees acting as a roof, and the earth as the kitchen counter.
While Rajesh carries the basic ingredients and masalas(ground Indian spices) with him, he relies on markets along the way for the meat and fish.
In one of his reels, he details the preparation of his mutton curry and kalegi(goat liver), while narrating about his journey of the day, the challenges along the way, the ETA (estimated time of arrival), and the plan of action. All along, the kalegisoaks in the flavours of the masala.
“Young people love my vlogs,” Rajesh says, beaming with pride. “It’s because I use simple ingredients and techniques. Most cooking vlogs on the internet use ingredients I cannot even pronounce. My young subscribers tell me, ‘Sir, when we move from home to our hostels, we follow your recipes. They are very easy!’.”
Neither his recipes nor his tales are embellished. Rajesh believes food and stories are best when they are curated from the heart. Even when at home. Sagar jokes that it’s his father who takes charge of the kitchen, not his mother.
While food has always been a passion, Rajesh’s journey to becoming an influencer, or for that matter, even a truck driver, wasn’t planned.
Rajesh believes in relying on the local ingredients of the regions through which he is driving.
“Around 1990, I was working as a mechanic in a garage in Jharkhand near the coal mines. My father was a truck driver at the time. I was just 16 years old, and the youngest in the garage,” Rajesh shares.
In between troubleshooting mechanical challenges in the trucks, Rajesh would cook for the drivers. His aloo sabzi (potato vegetable) was quite the hit.
Then in 1993, Rajesh’s father passed away following a heart attack. In a bid to shoulder the responsibility of the family, he began taking on more work at the garage. “Eventually, my father’s friends, who were also truck drivers, started taking me on assignments along with them so that, if the truck encountered any problems, I would be able to repair it,” he says.
Gradually, Rajesh started driving too. But even while he transitioned through these roles, he continued cooking. “When I met other drivers on the way, I would cook, and we would all share a meal together,” he says.
Then came his children’s idea of turning Rajesh’s daily updates into vlogs. Was he scared of going down the ‘influencer’ route? “Not at all,” he says. “I just did what I loved doing, and my children turned it into something creative.”
The success of Rajesh’s vlogs lies in their visceral detail, whether it’s making a desichicken curry near a bubbling stream, trying to gauge the ideal number of cooker ki seeti (pressure cooker whistles), figuring out how to finely chop onions in the middle of a jungle, or how to use a substitute tool when a mortar and pestle isn’t available to crush herbs into a paste.
And that intrepidity, according to him, is what lends flavour to his food.
Rajesh has amassed a great deal of love from his young fans who find his recipes easy to follow.
Rajesh Rawani didn’t set out to become an internet sensation. He simply kept doing what he had always done — working hard, cooking with love, and sharing meals whenever he could. The cameras came later.
Today, as his truck rolls from one corner of India to another, Rajesh carries more than cargo. He carries a reminder that passion can travel any road, and that even the most ordinary routines can become extraordinary when shared with the world.
Check out his videos here.
All pictures courtesy Rajesh Rawani
