There is a moment in Apexa Rajput’s story that stops you completely. The bank officials came and sealed the door of her family’s home in their small village in Maharashtra, a padlock on the place where a family should have been living. The debt had grown too large for two agricultural labourers earning just Rs 100 to Rs 150 a day to ever outrun. Apexa watched it happen. She was the daughter of the house, and she made a quiet, fierce promise to herself: she was going to get it back. What she could not have known then was that she would begin that journey with a borrowed phone, a farm field and a determination to turn her real, unfiltered life into something bigger. Today, Apexa is a YouTuber, model and digital creator, sharing everything from fitness and skincare to fashion, confidence and mindset.Her content reflects the woman behind the camera and the journey that shaped her. She shares **home remedies that actually work, fitness routines for real bodies, confidence-building tips, fashion and beauty inspiration, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of her modelling journey**, while also speaking about mindset and self-belief. Her videos are not about pretending to have a perfect life; they are about showing what it looks like to keep moving forward despite difficult beginnings. From working around farm fields to creating content, building her identity as a model and inspiring others online, Apexa’s story is a powerful reminder that sometimes a borrowed phone and an unwavering belief in yourself can become the first tools to rebuild everything you once lost.
13 Jul 2026 | 13:11
What’s one stereotype about women that you’re tired of hearing?
Growing up in the margins
Apexa grew up in a family where every rupee had weight. Her parents worked as agricultural labourers the kind of work that begins before the sun rises and leaves your body exhausted long before the day is done. Rs 100 to Rs 150 per day. For everything. Food, school, clothes, and eventually the loan that accumulated interest faster than it could be repaid. The home they lived in had been used as collateral for that loan. And when the repayments stopped, the bank did what banks do.They sealed it. For a family that had worked hard for every small thing they had, it was a devastation that went beyond the financial. It was the disappearance of the place where they belonged. Apexa did not collapse under the weight of it. She looked around at what she had. And she decided that with what she had, the farm, the village, and the authentic, unpolished reality of the life she was living were enough to start.
A borrowed phone and a farm field
She had no smartphone. No tripod. No ring light, no studio, no mentor, no savings, no safety net. She borrowed a phone. In May 2025, she went to her family’s farm and filmed her first video. Not a filtered, aspirational version of village life. Not a performance of something she was not. Just the truth of it, the soil, the labour, the simplicity, and the beauty that outsiders never see because it is never shown to them. The video went viral overnight.Millions of views. Comments pouring in. People who had never been to a village in Maharashtra were watching a girl show them what it actually looks like, not the tourist version, not the Bollywood version, but the real thing. Apexa watched the numbers climb and felt something shift inside her. Not just confidence. Something more like permission. Permission to keep going.
The trolls, the neighbours, and the noise she blocked out
Success on the internet does not arrive quietly. Especially not for a girl from a small village who decides to put her face on a screen. The criticism came from people who should have been her community. Neighbours who said her family would never amount to anything. People who questioned her character for choosing to work in the media industry. Comments that were not just unkind but deliberately cruel, the kind designed to make a young woman shrink back into invisibility.Apexa did not shrink. She posted another video. And another. She showed up consistently, with the same authenticity that had made her first video travel across the country. And slowly, the audience that understood what she was doing grew larger than the voices telling her to stop. She reached 100,000 followers. And then came the moment that proved this was real, her first brand collaboration. Rs 35,000 for a single partnership. For a family that had been living on Rs 100 to Rs 150 a day, that number was not just money. It was proof.
The Silver Play Button and the house with her name on it
YouTube gave her the Silver Play Button, the platform’s recognition for creators who reach a milestone that most people who start never reach. Apexa held it and thought about the sealed door. Because by the time that button arrived, she had already done what she had promised herself she would do. Her earnings from content creation had helped her family repay the debt. The padlock on the door was gone. The house that the bank had taken was back. And this time, she put it in her own name. A borrowed phone. A farm field. One video. And a girl who decided that poverty was her starting point, not her ending point.
What Apexa’s story says to every woman who has been told it is impossible
India is full of Apexas. Women in villages and small towns who have something real to say, something authentic to share, and something the world has never seen but have no camera, no platform, and no one to tell them that what they have is enough to begin. Apexa Rajput’s answer to all of them is her own story.You do not need perfect conditions. You do not need professional equipment. You do not need a head start or a safety net or anyone’s permission. You need the courage to start. And the stubbornness to keep going even when the people closest to you are the loudest ones telling you to stop. She started with a borrowed phone in a farm field. She ended up with her family’s home in her own name and a Silver Play Button on her wall. The house that the bank sealed is open again. And this time, nobody is taking it back.
