A stranger to Instagram until two years ago,
37-year-old Shrima Rai has renounced a lucrative
career in banking and made a successful foray
into the glittering realm of the now-ubiquitous
digital influencer. But where other bloggers
tow an entourage of make-up professionals,
photographers and fashion stylists to every event,
Rai prefers the boisterous company of her sons,
Vihaan (8) and Shivansh (3), who are permanent
fixtures at her shoots. The former Mrs. India
also dabbles in writing in her free time and has a
refreshing approach to blogging about fashion,
beauty and fitness; she personally tests each
product before giving it her stamp of approval,
and her #OOTD posts are meticulously curated
to create an Instagram feed that is both practical
and aspirational. In the midst of it all, her sons
are her pillars of strength, and Rai believes that
being a mother is more rewarding when you don’t
mollycoddle your kids but choose to bring them
up as accountable individuals instead. And, case
in point, though they are already worn out froma frenzied day of studies and extra-curricular
activities, Vihaan and Shivansh do cooperate
and display a certain level of maturity when
Sadaf Shaikh meets them after school hours on
a scorching May afternoon. The former, a chatty
extrovert, prattles on about his day, as he so often
does on the Instagram account, @theraiboys, that
his mother has created to capture her children’s
antics. Shivansh, on the other hand, is unusually
reticent, and allows his brother to steal the limelight
while he smiles coyly every now and then from the
safety of Rai’s arms. She is consciously raising her
sons, each with varying temperaments like their
home city of Mumbai — a place that still charms her
15 years after she moved here when she married
film producer Aditya Rai, who happens to be the
brother of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. She invites us
to explore the cocoon of convenience that she has
created for herself and the boys, which allows them
to remain within a 10-minute radius of their Bandra
ecosystem, as they navigate food stores, hair salons,
coffee shops and outdoor parks in the area....LIVIN’
LA
VIDA
LOCAL
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHWETA DESAI