Being a kid from a small town, little did 24-year-old Anil Geela know that one day, he would see himself on the silver screen. Anil, a YouTuber with the channel ‘My Village Show,’ known for its local Telangana style content and satire, featured in Vijay Devarakonda’s latest release World Famous Lover.
Anil, who worked as a school teacher before he became a full-time YouTuber, lives in Jagitial's Lambadipally, from where ‘My Village Show’ functions. Anil tells TNM that he is being appreciated for his acting in the movie. Anil essays the character of Saidulu, who is the ally of the villain, Patnaik, in World Famous Lover.
"I never thought that one day, I will act with such a big hero. My Telangana slang was an advantage for me. I am thankful to Vijay Devarakonda for the opportunity,” he says.
Anil hails from Siddipet's Dargapally and was born and brought there. Anil's mother, Nirmala is a farmer, while his father Mallesham is a vegetable vendor. In Anil's words, he preferred working at the small hotel run by his parents, rather than going to school. After completing his schooling, Anil passed his intermediate education and scored good marks.
“I thought of joining an engineering college, but understood that it's a costly affair. So I decided to take a teacher training course and decided to pursue a diploma in education,” Anil says.
That was when Anil was introduced to a new world of visual media and video making — at the college that he attended in Karimnagar. That is when he met Srikanth, the son of one of his lecturers, Sriram Mondaiah, who is a Youtuber and the founder of ‘My Village Show.’
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Then, alongside his course, Anil started to experiment with the visual medium — he started video-blogging and shooting videos. Even after he completed the course and began to work as a teacher, he continued his video blogs.
It was in mid-2017 that Anil started acting for My Village Show. Anil says, “I shifted my base to Lambadipally to be part of the team. Srikanth taught me the nuances of video shooting and editing, and our journey never stopped."
A year later, August 2018, a video of Anil and his friend Pilli Tirupati doing the viral trend “Kiki challenge” — their unique dance next to a pair of ploughing bullocks in a field — stormed the internet. Soon, Anil became popular not just on YouTube, but also on the vastly popular micro video-blogging platform, TikTok. His dialogues in local slang and clips of his performances have garnered him over 3.5 lakh followers on TikTok.
When asked about his future, Anil says, “I have received offers to work in around two-three good projects, purely because of my performance in My Village Show. I will continue to explore the opportunities."