The critically acclaimed actor of Angry Indian Goddess, Sacred Games, Manto, S Durga and Trial by Fire, on her diagnosis of breast cancer, how it served as a wake-up call for her, and the Indian healthcare system
We, as a society and community, often hear about cancer as something that happens to others around us. A distant relative, a colleague, a neighbour. Never in our wildest dreams do we imagine it being us. Actor Rajshri Deshpande, too, thought the same. “We always think that it will happen to someone else, not us,” she says, speaking from her home in Mumbai. The irony isn’t lost on her now, with her breast cancer diagnosis, as earlier this year, she was diagnosed with Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma (NOS), a Grade 1 breast cancer. “I remember being flippant about it. When I was dealing with some hair fall, I’d joke, ‘Mujhe cancer toh nahi ho gaya?’ (It’s not like I have cancer, right?)”
Cancer, no matter how much we wish it to be a far-off reality, is a lived truth for many. For the year 2025, approximately 15.7 lakh new cancer cases were projected, and the diagnosis rate remains steady at 15.5 to 15.6 lakh for the year 2026. Breast and cervical cancers remain the most common types affecting women in India, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all female cases.
Deshpande, who has earned critical praise for her work in Sacred Games, Manto, S Durga and Trial by Fire, has been vocal about her cancer journey. She took to social media and posted a picture of herself from her hospital bed after her surgery: “I was lucky because we caught it early. It stumped me momentarily, but I didn’t sit on it. I started planning, focusing on what life wants me to follow now. I didn’t think about what hasn’t happened or what needs to go. Now it’s about what I can do in the present. That’s what’s more important.”
Cracks in the healthcare system
The ‘planner’ in Deshpande has been honed to perfection after years of learning how to navigate the system for others, which she now has to manoeuvre as a patient. Since 2018, Deshpande’s work with the Nabhangan Foundation has placed her at the grassroots of rural Maharashtra, focusing on healthcare and community wellbeing among other themes like education and water rejuvenation. She has seen, up close, the systemic cracks that define the Indian medical landscape.
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From a village dispensary to a private room at a plush Mumbai hospital, she has seen it all. “Even my questions to my doctors were: ‘Are these tests available to people in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities?’ Even for someone like me, with the resources and tools, it takes time to make the system work for me. Imagine the case for someone dependent entirely on government hospitals? Cancer is an expensive affair.” Deshpande underwent the Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score® test, a specialised test, only available in the USA, which helped her personalise her treatment. “It’s through this test that I came to know I didn’t need chemotherapy. But this test is very expensive and not many people can afford it”.
Rajshri Deshpande with Abhay Deol in Trial by Fire
The price of cancer isn’t just the many millions one needs to get the treatment. There is an addendum to the cost of the waiting, and for women, that wait cost is magnified by the societal pressure to endure it in silence. “There are some other agencies, like the Tata Memorial Hospital in Navi Mumbai, who help out. But you need immense patience for it. And any woman who’s going through cancer is also going through peri-menopause or menopause at the same time. There are mood swings and hormonal flip-flops. Imagine waiting for hours on end to get five minutes with a doctor. All this takes a toll,” shares Deshpande.
Life, through the lens of an artist
It’s heartening to see the actor’s resilience and a clear strategy to not let the difficult situation that she has been dealt with define her. “We need to normalise this. Life happens, yeh nahin toh kya pata kuch aur hota (If not this, then, who knows, something else would happen)… plans go for a toss, so the overthinking has stopped. The chronology of one’s life can change. What we wanted at No 3 can come on No 7 now. And one can get a jhatka (jolt) at all points of life, or else life kya hi hai (what even is life),” she reflects.
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Has she always been this reflective and accepting of life’s curve balls? One wonders if this is a recent development. Deshpande smiles. “It’s always been there in some capacity. It ebbs and flows,” she says. “We have chosen this life, to live, to question, to think, and to respond. As long as we are alive, these things are possible; otherwise, the mundane takes over.”
Deshpande has a clear path in front of her. She eats well, surrounds herself with her chosen tribe and makes concentrated efforts to get better. She has also turned to art and literature for comfort. She revisited The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan, and was struck by Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me. “I rewatched Groundhog Day, and it is such a heartwarming story,” shares Deshpande.
One gets a feeling that she is preparing for a role — that of someone on a health mission — almost as if she has immersed herself in the character, in a method-acting style. “Full on!” she quips. “Radiation is a painful process. One can’t breathe… it’s quite intense. I think I’m going to a film shoot, or I have an intense scene, or a high-stakes audition. I imagine everyone in the hospital is an actor on a set. Even when I was heading for surgery, I approached it with the same verve, through the lens of an artist. An artist looks at life in a very distinct, unique way, and that’s helped me a lot right now,” signs off Deshpande, appealing to women to prioritise their health and get tested early for diseases that can be detected. “And please, let’s talk about them more, share openly to break the taboo.”
