How Indu Became the "Viral Boobs Lady"

If Indu Harikumar had her way she should have left for London to do an expensive art course back in 2010. Instead, she got rejected because of a silly mistake in her application form. She would have to wait six months before she could reapply.

Indu with her students in Ladhak. She had volunteered at a nunnery in 2014 and part of her duties included teaching these kids art and creativity.

With time on her hands, she started teaching an art class on a construction site in Mumbai. The voluntary organisation she worked for could not provide her with much in the way of art resources. So she innovated. Indu would pick up leaves, bottle caps, match boxes, anything that could help her create beautiful art with the kids. She also began blogging about it. She says "I did not really think anyone read my blog or followed by twitter posts as I had so few followers, but Pratham books (a not-for profit publisher of children's literature) did. And they began tweeting about my classes every Thursday."

Indu's created many of these match box books. She's even trained kids to do these. She would post all of this work onto her different social media accounts, just to share her creativity with friends.

That was Indu's first experience with the power of social media. Those early tweets by Pratham led to a book cover and an invitation from Bookaroo (a festival of Children's literature) "to work with children because of my match box books. I was even invited to give a talk at the Kala Ghoda arts festival. I remember thinking at that time that these things happen to people who went to big design school, not someone sent to a "drawing class" by her parents."

It also led to her first book deal. Children's publisher Katha Books asked her to illustrate Sarojini Naidu's poem the Palanquin Bearers using cloth. This is one of the illustrations that made it to the book.

Her success spurred Indu to set up a Facebook page. But, she admitted to not being a social media maven."Sure, I put up my work and travel photos. I also share a lot of personal stuff on FB. But I don't do anything to build up membership or followers. I have never tried to build an email list. I am busy with my projects and I just use Facebook and Instagram to share what I do." 

If by now you're wondering what a children's writer has to do with viral boobs, you are about to find out. One of  Indu's projects was a book on her ancestor who resided in 18th century Kerala. He had an interesting story and she wanted to tell it. While researching the period, Indu came across a stunning fact. There was a rather unusual tax system imposed on lower caste women in the state. She had to write about it. This is what she put up on her Facebook page:

"Last night, I was drawing the family comic for the nth time when I started reading about Mulakaram or breast tax. A tax to be paid by Dalit women in Travancore in 1800s, depending on the size of their breasts. I knew that low caste women couldn't cover their bosom but didn't know about this tax or Nangeli. Since everything can't go into the comic, I decided to draw this."

The response to the post was ballistic. Indu used to get a couple of thousand views on her page and a few shares. But look what happened post the boob post.

The post went up on Jan 20th. In the four days following she got calls from two television stations and a women's magazine wanting to profile her work. She also came to be referred to as the "viral boobs" lady. Strangers calling her with requests to turn their lifelong collection of cassettes, matchboxes and sundry other items into works of art and even an art student wanting to intern with her.

She had to turn down the intern, because in a beautiful twist of fate, Indu leaves for Vienna in a couple of months for an art residency. She gets to spend time learning from and teaching other artists and story tellers in one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

I believe Indu's social media success has more to it than boobs. She followed her heart. Created beautiful things and beautiful stories. She focused her energies on doing what she does best. She does not think too much about what works or does not work on social media. She thinks about beauty, about artistry and about story telling. Social media has ensured that she herself has become a story worth telling.