Women's Day 2023: How This Film Producer Is Changing The Lives Of Kids In Latur Film producer Deepshikha Deshmukh made her debut in the industry in 2016 with Sarbjit, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda in the lead roles.

Film producer Deepshikha Deshmukh made her debut in the industry in 2016 with Sarbjit, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda in the lead roles and premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. The harrowing tale was based on the true story of Sarabjit Singh, who mistakenly crossed the Indo-Pak border, spending 22 years in prison. Post that, Deepshikha was part of various films such as Bell Bottom, which they shot and released during the pandemic and the direct to net release Cuttputtli, which became the most watched film on OTT in 2022.

2023 is going to be an exciting year for her which several projects lined up: Ganapath starring Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon, a coal mine rescue film starring Akshay Kumar and Parineeti Chopra, an out and out family comedy directed by Mudassar Aziz, an action comedy Bade Miyan Chote Miyan directed by Ali Abbas Zafar with Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff and Prithviraj as the antagonist.

But her film projects are one aspect of her life.

Another significant aspect is the project Read Latur. Her husband Dhiraj Vilasrao Deshmukh is an MLA from Latur, which also happens to be their home town. Along with him she wanted to introduce the world of literature to the kids of the area at a time when the rural schools only had curriculum and school related books, they didn't have libraries with books of different categories and authors expressing ideas, inspirations and world-famous stories. Deepshikha had seen the difference it's made to her children when she introduced them to stories. With this objective in mind, they met with various educators, local heads and discussed about setting up rural libraries, so they could empower children with wordly stories, fables, literature and knowledge. "We wanted to ignite the love and joy for reading a real book where children could read stories and could benefit from it in the long run," Deepshikha says, who herself grew up reading the Ramayan, Amar Chitra Katha, Nancy Drew and The Famous Five.

The project Read Latur has made more resources available for the children to feed their imagination so they gain confidence, know more about the world and what thoughts and opinions are authors putting out through these books. "We want to arm them with all the resources to ignite the joy of reading so that they can explore different content , be confident with reading skills , get a better command on the languages and we strongly believe the bright minds from rural villages will soon write the next chapter of India," Deepshikha elaborates on the difference Read Latur has made.

The author can be reached at bkabir@entrepreneurindia.com and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari