Chennai, Jul 6 (IANS): The Tamil YouTube cooking channel made famous by the participation of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has acquired one crore subscribers, which has earned it YouTubes Diamond Play Button.

The YouTube channel, which was launched as a 'timepass' activity by some residents of the Chinna Veeramangalam villae in the Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, now has a global audience.

Created by cousins V. Subramanian, V. Murugesan, V. Ayyanar, G. Tamilselvan and T. Muthumanickam, and led by their grandfather and former caterer, M. Periyathambi, the channel's daily subscriber numbers jumped from 10,000 to 40,000 after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi appeared on it.

The team earns around Rs 7 lakh a month as their share of the advertisement revenue generated by YouTube views. It recently donated Rs 10 lakh to the Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund. handing over the cheque personally to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.

Subramanian, the techie behind the YouTube channel, said in a conversation with IANS: "We began this channel to spend time when we were not cultivating as basically we are all farmers. As all men in our village can cook, we thought why not show it to the world."

He said a quarter of the Rs 7 lakh they earn per month is spent on buying the ingredients because, as he put it, "we regularly hoist feasts in the village". Subramanian also said the team does "a lot of charity and spend on the needy."

The YouTube cooking channel is the first in Tamil Nadu to cross the mark of 1 crore subscribers.

Periyathambi who is also known as thaatha or grandfather, said: "It is really great that we are getting recognition from as far as the United States of America. I think that everyone should believe in their own abilities and this is what you are seeing in our case. We popularised our strength and it became a hit. I feel proud because we are being recognized internationally."