Dhruv Rathee on His New Start-Up ‘AI Fiesta’, ChatGPT Rivalry & India’s AI Future
The last seven days have been a blur of innovation and cultural landmarks in the Indian creator and entertainment world. The rousing entry into the AI startup world by the ambitious Dhruv Rathee and the overdue appearance of Patruni Chidananda Sastry on Telugu television are some of the indicators of a more progressive, inclusive, and accessible future. This paper delves into these show-stopping news items to explain their relevance, local relevance, and how such incidents fit in the wider picture of India and its increasingly digital and entertainment-driven fraternity, buttressed with supportable material.
Dhruv Rathee’s AI Fiesta: Democratizing AI Access
On August 17, 2025, Dhruv Rathee (a YouTuber with 29.5 million subscribers) launched AI Fiesta, a system that runs and consolidates the best AI models on a single interface, including GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Grok 4, Perplexity Sonar, and DeepSeek. Priced at 1999 per month, it has 5 lakh shared tokens that can help a user submit requests to multiple AIs simultaneously to complete tasks such as research, writing, or fact-checking. The platform, which was co-founded with Mohammad Hasan and Divyanshu Damani of the YC-backed TagMango, clocked more than 100,000 downloads within two days and a $3 million annual recurring revenue run rate, according to Rathee.
Alternative challenges solved in India with I Fiesta include the use of dollars to pay subscription fees and the inability to tap premium tools available in AI. It allows instant payment using the UPI and future support of regional languages, aiming at the students, freelancers, and small businesses in tier-2 and tier-3. The length of the vision of Rathee can be structured around the growth of the artificial intelligence market in India that is postulated to be US$7.84 billion by 2025 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 48.8% through 2030. Nonetheless, the critics complain that the token pool is exhausted in a short time, and whether unpromising model varieties are used is being discussed; the example describes the case of misidentification (e.g., Gemini was mistaken as OpenAI). Through the affordability and bias mitigation using multi-model responses, AI Fiesta promises to bring value even to the 1 billion internet users in India, where people are cynical about artificial intelligence.
The venture depends on the credibility of Rathee and its success in India due to the high penetration of the internet in urban regions of India and the demand for accessible AI. The future is planned on iOS applications and enterprise subscriptions, which means that AI Fiesta could become the Jio of AI should the trust capital pay off and it can resolve concerns of speed, stability, and transparency.
Patruni Chidananda Sastry’s Historic Bigg Boss Moment
Patruni Chidananda Sastry became the first Telugu drag queen to appear on the pre-show of Bigg Boss Telugu Season 9, Bigg Boss Telugu Agni Pariksha, which aired in August 2025. This was, according to Patruni, a well-known performer and activist, a landmark moment for queer visibility on mainstream Telugu television, which tends to be highly conservative. Their look breaks these stereotypes and adds more inclusiveness to India, which is making great efforts toward creating a diverse media.
Bigg Boss Telugu has a huge fan base, and an average of 7.5 million viewers tune in to the show per episode. Patruni is not the only figure in the Indian LGBTQ+ community gaining international attention; his participation is a sign of a larger cultural shift. With the decriminalization of Section 377 in 2018, LGBTQ+ people are becoming visible in India. Responses to the milestone were positive on social media, particularly Instagram, where people praised the bravery of Patruni and pointed to the effect it would have on the wider audience of younger people in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Yet there were also some who were offended by this in the conservative viewer, and this goes to show that there is yet more acceptance to be achieved.
The moment of Patruni is a continuity of his history as a drag performer and an activist in Hyderabad Pride before. Their participation in Bigg Boss Telugu acts as a move towards normalization of diverse identities in local media, which hopefully can be replicated by other media houses. With the Indian entertainment industry shifting towards streaming audiences with more than 40 million subscribers to the Disney+ Hotstar streaming service in 2025, it might set a new standard in audience demands.
Broader Context: A Week of Creative Milestones
Other creators also created waves during the week. Aditya Kumar has entered India’s wellness market worth US$20 billion with a Pilates workshop through his startup, Eraaura Wellness. Nischay Malhan unveiled Trade Up, a reality show that will air on Disney+ Hotstar on August 31, and Sakshi Keswani and Aparshakti Khurana have teamed with Joey Movies in Lafzaan. Sachin Tendulkar also did an AMA on Reddit through the help of Agasthya Shah on August 25, which demonstrates the effectiveness of digital mediums when it comes to enabling communications between icons and audiences.
Why It Matters
The AI Fiesta and the Bigg Boss appearance of Patruni Chidananda Sastry can be seen as two sides of the national transformation: India grows technologically and culturally. This aligns with the digital economy in India that is growing to US$1 trillion by 2030. We tend to compare Patruni rising to the top to that of a very conservative industry that shows some signs of progressivism, corroborating the interest of the youngest generations, as 65 percent of India is under 35. Collectively, they illustrate the ways that creators are using technology and media to create change and provide both inspiration and practical use to millions of people.
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