Rare vintage video shows fresh Miss World 1994 Aishwarya Rai playing with kids: ‘Indian Diana’

A rare video of Aishwarya Rai, shortly after winning Miss World 1994, shows her joyfully playing with children, recalling her iconic beauty pageant moment.

This Saturday, we are bringing you a beautiful blast from the past. A rare video has surfaced on social media that shows Bollywood star and former beauty queen Aishwarya Rai hanging out with kids. While the post did not mention when the video was shot, it appears to be from a few days after she was crowned Miss World 1994.

Aishwarya Rai played with kids in the video that has now surfaced on social media.

A blast from the Miss World past

The video shows Aishwarya in her early 20s, fresh off the Miss World win. She is in a white kurta-pyjama and a blue dupatta, playing with little kids as more people gather around them. She is also seen with a tika on her forehead and her thick, long hair left loose and unstyled.

In the vintage video, Aishwarya smiled brightly as she played with kids. A portion of the video also shows her wearing an orange paper crown while a child wears a yellow one, perhaps recreating her crowning moment on the Miss World stage.

Aishwarya won the crown during a ceremony in South Africa's Sun City in 1994. She was the first runner-up in the Miss India pageant, losing the top spot to Sushmita Sen. While Aishwarya won Miss World, Sushmita also nabbed the Miss Universe crown in her respective competition.

Fans loved the video. “Indian Diana,” wrote a fan. “No wonder she is an amazing mother,” commented another fan. “Her face, her giggles, her aura,” read a comment. A person also thought that Aishwarya looked a lot like Rashmika Mandanna in the video.

Rivalry rumours with Sushmita Sen

Over the years, both Sushmita and Aishwarya have spoken about their winning moments and rumoured rivalry. Sushmita once clarified in an interview with WildFilmsIndia that they were neither enemies nor friends.

Sushmita said that she and Aishwarya "never had enough time to be enemies, rivals or friends," adding, “We were always people who knew each other from a distance. We minded our own business, did our thing. We were not the best of friends, who’d say, ‘No, you first.’ We always wanted to be the best in our own ways — which we have proven to be. I went ahead and won Miss Universe; she went ahead and won Miss World. Neither of us was second to anybody. We did our job, and we did it well.”

She added, “People should keep one thing in mind — if we ever had any rivalry, it was in our own work. To ensure that I am good at what I do. You only compare people against one another when both are perfect. None of us is perfect. We both started a new career and have to work really hard to make a place for ourselves before any comparisons can be made. There is no such thing as rivalry. The sad part is that people don’t understand that. There will come a day when, after all that’s been said and done, Aishwarya and I will have the last laugh.”

Aishwarya was last seen in Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan I and II. She has not announced her next project yet. Aishwarya is married to Abhishek Bachchan and has a daughter, Aaradhya, with him.