Dhanitri Pai: Oman’s food-blogger from Mumbai
COVID-19 pandemic helped her reach where she is now
Muscat: Indian expatriate Dhanitri Pai is a much sought-after food blogger in Oman, popular among Indians, Pakistanis, and Omanis, with a good number of followers spilling over from Dubai and other GCC countries as well. Pai says food blogging was never part of her planned journey. She had always wanted to become a photographer and loved good food.
Ten years ago, when she came to Oman, she went about clicking the various moods and hues in the country. “Then I started cooking to click pictures, just to master my photographic skills,” she said. Her friends Ketan and Shrutika encouraged her about her skills that bring life to photos and she started blogging about food.
“But my food blogging journey started when I randomly reviewed a restaurant here in Muscat and posted it in my SM page. The chef of the restaurant called me personally and said my review style was different and deeper than others in fray. It got me thinking and rest as they say is history!”
Dhanitri revamped her Instagram page and her food blogging journey in 2015. She candidly admits that the COVID-19 pandemic helped her reach where she is now. “The last two years catapulted me many notches above where I was. People were stuck with their smart phones throughout the day for many weeks and months, and my cooking tips and ideas during this time found takers.”
Dhanitri spends the whole day with just half an hour’s break at times, to arrange, cook, film and edit her reels and videos she posts to her Instagram account @homemakerssecretdiary that has a 15,000-strong fan followers.
Her quality of work and content have made her so popular that she has a raft of endorsement offers from Oman based outlets. Invitations and gifts that she gets from various quarters are all testimony of her hard work, she says. “Cooking is my passion and so is photography but cleaning the mess after cooking and clearing the table after filming are daunting. But my husband who is my rock all along helps me with a lot of chores whenever he is around.”