Overview

• Samaira Rekhi saved her stepmother’s contact as “Dia, not yet evil stepmother” in a playful nod to fairy‐tale tropes.
• Dia Mirza credits growing up without classic fairy tales for preventing biases against stepparents.
• She reflects on her own stepfather, Ahmed Mirza, whom her family helped become more affectionate after he married her mother when she was six.
• Since marrying Vaibhav Rekhi in 2021, Dia has embraced life as both stepmother to Samaira and mother to their son, Avyaan.
• Their son Avyaan was born prematurely and spent two months in the NICU, an experience Dia and Vaibhav have openly shared.