Sacred Games actress helped build 200 toilets, a school and a canal in Maharashtra village. Who is Rajshri Deshpande? Her education qualifications and career

Rajshri Deshpande made a name for herself as an actress with TV series such as The Sacred Games and critically acclaimed films such as Manto and Angry Indian Goddesses. She is back in the headlines, this time not for a new film but for helping uplift a small village named Pandhari in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district. In 2018, she started the non-profit Nabhangan Foundation and has been helping the community rebuild the village school, fix the water supply from a nearby river, and get government money for 200 toilets, which are all being used now.

According to a report by the Hindustan Times, Deshpande was brought up in Marathwada, a part of Maharashtra where cotton and cane are grown. This area has some of the richest and poorest farmers in India, along with some of the richest and driest land. Her dad farmed cotton. She says she saw him having a hard time supporting his wife and three daughters after their land, which is prone to drought, was bought for an industrial project.

In a chat with The Better India, she said: “My ancestors were farmers. Even though my father was a government employee, he farmed too. I have seen all the ups and downs of farming. We were cotton growers in Bhokardan near Aurangabad. But then water scarcity and drought made it difficult to farm. So my father sold our land and shifted to Aurangabad for work. My parents worked hard to educate their three daughters. I have seen their struggle," she said.


This was far from the first time she was involved in helping people in distress. She was one of the volunteers in Srinagar after the 2014 floods and in Nepal after the earthquake of 2015. She spent three months travelling through Marathwada's drought-affected villages five years ago. She claims to have understood that donations and tweets weren't a true solution. Only if she stayed and worked on the ground would things change.

As per the Hindustan Times report, her first job at Pandhari was to clear a canal that had dried out. She raised Rs 1.5 lakh through donations and hired 50 farmers to clean up the canal. She then worked along with the authorities, building 200 toilets for the 250 families who lived in the village. She also worked hard to restore the Zilla Parishad school.

“I studied in a very small school. We used to sit on the floor. There was one toilet, whose door was always open. I thought all classrooms smelt like pee. I never thought of it as a dirty smell. Here, I wanted to help create a school with hygiene, books, and sports equipment,” she said.

Aside from films and social work, the actress also had to battle a huge health crisis. In a recent chat with the Mid Day, the Sacred Games star opened up about how she coped with being diagnosed with grade 1 breast cancer in March. She said the diagnosis came as a wake-up call of sorts, reminding her to focus on self-love.

“I loved myself all these years. I was always a fearless person. But somewhere you forget [self-love]. For me, it was a wake-up call that I was stressing myself mentally,” she said.

On the professional side, 2025 was a busy year for Deshpande, with him involved in various formats. She played the role of Pratibha Sen in the Netflix show 'Black Warrant' and the role of Naina Johri in the Amazon Prime Video show 'Rangeen'. She was last seen in 'Baapya', a Marathi comedy-drama that was written and directed by Sameer Tewari. The movie is set in the coastal area of Konkan.

It tells the story of Shailaja, who comes back to her village after leaving it as Shailesh. She had gone through gender reassignment surgery before returning. When Shailaja comes back unexpectedly, it changes everything for her family and the tight-knit community they live in. Everyone is forced to deal with questions about who they are, whether they can accept each other, and what is considered normal in their society. Deshpande acts in both the roles of Shailaja and Shailesh.

Deshpande holds an LLB degree from Symbiosis Law School and a postgraduate degree in advertising from Symbiosis International University. She also has a diploma in filmmaking from Subhash Ghai’s institute, Whistling Woods International. She has also enrolled in a course at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Rajshri initially worked in advertising to support herself, and later she found her passion for acting, which made her pursue a filmmaking diploma at Whistling Woods International. Her Bollywood career started with a small part in Aamir Khan's thriller movie 'Talaash', and then she appeared in the TV shows 'Kuch Toh Log Kahenge' and '24: India'. She then went back to acting with a small part in the movie 'Kick' and later acted in the Malayalam film 'Haram', which was directed by Vinod Sukumaran and starred Fahadh Faasil and Radhika Apte in the main roles.

It was the 2015 film Angry Indian Goddesses that catapulted her to fame. Her performance as Laxmi was widely appreciated by critics.

Deshpande was the lead in Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's movie Sexy Durga from 2017, which received the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival.

Deshpande made her first appearance on the internet through the BBC One show McMafia, which was directed by James Watkins, in January 2018. She also appeared in the Netflix series Sacred Games, which was directed by Anurag Kashyap. In it, she played the character of Subhadra and received praise for her role as the wife of Nawazuddin Siddiqui's character. She later played the role of Ismat Chughtai in Nandita Das's film Manto.