An environment of discussion and debate could do wonders for any child. A product of one such environment is Mishkkaa Verma, who at the age of 11, is not only opinionated and aware, but also has her very own YouTube channel, Mishkkaa - The Billi of Hollywood where she talks about road safety, good touch-bad touch, outdoor vs gadgets and many other topics that children need to know about.
"The reason behind creating this channel was that when kids like me run a search on YouTube for interesting videos, the stuff out there is not really relevant to us or told in a way that appeals to us," she says, with a reasoning that is quite unusual for a child her age. "My parents don't hide anything from me and are very open to discussing everything," says the student of The Future Kid's School, Hyderabad. Apart from this, she reads the newspaper and loves watching National Geographic, Fox Life and the History Channel on TV.
Every month, Mishkkaa puts out two to three videos, the scripts of which are all her, "then Mom checks it for grammatical errors and shoots it on her iPhone8," she says. But of course, the big bad world of the internet often rears its ugly head in the comments section of her videos, some of which she blocks, but the rest she takes positively. So, has her fame ever led to her being recognised on the streets? "Sometimes, when I go to the mall, parents recognise me as the Billi and it feels nice," she shyly admits.
But to remain relevant and true to her aim, Mishkkaa makes sure that she chooses topics that are student and children-centric, some of her recent ones being Run 4 Champa (her contribution towards the campaign to save River Champa), Keeping Public Spaces Clean, Say NO to superstitions! and more. "I choose my topics carefully because it shouldn't seem inappropriate for my age and the age group that I am targetting," she says, sensibly. One of her recent videos, Odho do Zindagi, an appeal to donate wollens, was shared by the NGO Goonj and received over two lakh hits.
Talking about her own challenges, the well-read YouTuber says, "Initially, I used to talk too fast because I have ADHD, but my mom started putting in a lot of commas in the script, which really helped me," she says. But her 'condition' has never stopped her from anything, nor has the fact that she and her sister are adopted, "In fact, we are proud of it. I really think that parents should adopt more. There are so many lonely children out there and we need to give them a beautiful life," she says, demonstrating wisdom far beyond her years. Before we say goodbye, we remember the first question we intended to ask her. Why the name The Billi of Hollywood? It seems disconnected from what she talks about in her videos. "Well, I like cats and I like Hollywood," she says. There we see that innocence which reminds us that she’s just a child, albeit an exceptional one!
Check her out on https://www.facebook.com/Mishkkaaverma/
