From Blockbusters to the Kitchen: How Farah Khan Cooked Up a Second Act on YouTube

For eleven years after Happy New Year, the phone stopped ringing. Offers to direct dried up, the corridors of film studios grew quiet, and Farah Khan—once the force behind 2004’s Main Hoon Na and 2007’s Om Shanti Om—found herself at home, restless.

Then the bills arrived.

“My triplets turn eighteen next year,” she laughs, recalling the moment last April when tuition letters from foreign universities landed like expensive confetti. “Three kids, three continents, three times the panic. I looked at Shirish and said, ‘Either we sell the house… or I sell my cooking.’”

She chose the stove.

On a whim, Farah propped up a phone in her kitchen, handed her longtime cook Dilip a ladle, and pressed record. The first video—butter chicken with a side of Bollywood gossip—went live on 3 April 2024. Within 48 hours it had crossed a million views; within six months her channel was nudging three million subscribers and her Instagram had ballooned to 4.5 million.

The recipe was simple: star-grade masala meets middle-class budgeting. Viewers got Farah’s razor-sharp one-liners, Dilip’s terrified expressions, and the comforting clang of everyday pots—no vanity van, no retakes, no filter.

Appearing on the chat show Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle this week, the 60-year-old filmmaker called the pivot “accidental but overdue”.
“I’d spent decades waiting for someone else to say ‘action’. When the movies dried up, I realised I could yell ‘action’ in my own kitchen. Happiness, I discovered, smells like fried onions.”

And longevity? She’s banking on it.
“I don’t need to be 28 or size zero to sauté spinach. If the knees hold out, I’ll be on YouTube at 80, still terrifying Dilip.”

The episode, which also features actor Ananya Panday, drops on Prime Video tonight at midnight—proof that second acts can be filmed on a phone, edited in pajamas, and served with a spoonful of self-respect.