Deepshikha Deshmukh juggles multiple roles: a Bollywood producer, a mother and an entrepreneur. Her debut production, Sarbjit (2016), starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda was an interesting diversion from the kind of films her production house, Pooja Entertainment was known for. Recognized as the place which gave us some of the biggest comedies of the 90s such as Coolie No 1 (1995) and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998), a casting coup that saw Big B and Govinda joining hands. Sarbjit, however, was a biopic of Sarabjit Singh, a farmer residing at Bhikiwind, Punjab, who had crossed over the Indo-Pak border, and sentenced to capital punishment under suspicions of being a spy.
Deshmukh continued this trend with the Irrfan Khan starrer Madaari (2016), about a man who seeks accountability from the government. And then with Mission Raniganj, went back to real life stories on the mining engineer from IIT Dhanbad who rescued 65 trapped miners at the Raniganj Coalfields in 1989. In a 40 minute long podcast, Deshmukh spoke to us about how the team created the mines, as this was the first mine rescue film being undertaken in India. But film-making is a tricky business, and at times one never knows what the audience may or may not like, which is why theatrically, the film didn’t do well, although with its OTT debut on Netflix it found its admirers.
However, their family wasn’t always into the film business, far from it actually. Her father, Vashu Bhagnani, used to sell saris on a footpath in Kolkata. His business acumen made him expand the business, and then try his hand in several different industries such as plastics, construction and music cassettes. “When he saw Aankhen (1991, starring Govinda and Chunky Panday), he said he wanted to make films. But he didn’t know anything about the industry, we all told him! He went to David Dhawan ji and he gave him some money as advance. David ji thought that many people come and give him money to become producers, but return after a few weeks and ask for their money back,” Deshmukh tells us about her dad. However, he was serious about what he wanted to do, and that is how Coolie No. 1 happened, releasing in June 1995.
When not working on films, Deshmukh has her hands more than full, what with two kids, and a third- Love Organically, a toxin-free beauty, skincare, wellness and sustainable brand, launched in 2016, which seemed to be probably her most productive year on all fronts. While in the film space she partners with her father, Vashu Bhagnani and brother, Jacky Bhagnani, another project which is very dear to her is the Read Latur campaign. Her husband Dhiraj Vilasrao Deshmukh is a politician from Latur, also their home town. Together with him, the Read Latur campaign introduced the world of literature to the kids, after brainstorming with several educators and local heads, ultimately setting up rural libraries for the children.
From her foray into film production, to her business, the highs and lows of her career such as BMCM not working at the box office and tracing the origins of her father in Bollywood, Deshmukh is at her candid best in our podcast.