Deepak Dhar, CEO and Managing Director, Endemol India

During his school days at Activity High School in Peddar Road, Deepak Dhar used to spend his pocket money buying video cassettes of Amitabh Bachchan’s films. On one particular occasion, the video cassette library he used to frequent was on the verge of going bankrupt, so they put everything on sale. “They were selling each VHS tape for R100 and I had the exact amount,” he recalls. While most of his friends spent their sum on Bachchan’s superhit films such as Sholay, Don and Deewar, Dhar went ahead and bought Mahaan, a hit but not-so-popular movie of the actor, where he had a triple role. “All my friends were like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ My reasoning was that I’ll get to watch three Bachchans at the price of one!” he laughs. The film buff might never have imagined that his ability to understand the logistics of entertainment, will, one day, lead him to becoming the CEO and MD of Endemol India, one of the leading content production companies in the country.

Deepak Dhar on the sets of Bigg Boss at Lonavala. Pics/Atul Kamble

Baby steps
Born in Hyderabad to Kashmiri Pandit parents, Dhar remembers speaking fluent Telugu till the age of 10, when he moved to Mumbai with his parents. He stayed at Breach Candy for almost 15 years before moving to Powai where he currently resides. “I was always very filmi,” says the entrepreneur, referring to the ‘Mahaan’ episode, “I always had this flair for writing and photography,” he adds. Taking up engineering in college was not out of choice, but by default. “I come from a middle-class orthodox Kashmiri family, where you are a nobody if you are not an engineer or a doctor,” he states.