Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, who recently produced the series Inside Edge, will now produce a biopic on the life of Deepa Malik, who is India’s first and only woman to win a medal at the Paralympic Games.

Ritesh Sidhwani, who is producing Deepa’s biopic with partner Farhan Akhtar under their banner Excel Entertainment shared, "I had watched videos of her and knew that her life story was unreal, but when I met her and she let me hold her medal, the sheer weight of the silver gave me goose bumps. At one point in her life, she had to choose between death and life in a wheelchair and she chose the latter. But as she sat in front of me, there was nothing differently-abled about her. She was empowering, a pillar of strength, and I knew that we needed to take her fight to the big screen.”

Ritesh further shared, "In 2006, she took to javelin throw and then had to change her sport one year before the Paralympics. For an event for which people train their entire lives, she had only 12 months to learn shotput. She returned home with a silver medal in Rio.”

For those who do not know this, Deepa Malik who is 46 now and a mother of two girls had suffered from a tremendous backache during her second pregnancy 20 years ago. The doctors then blamed it on the weight gain, but even though she had a normal delivery, the pain increased and got so bad that she couldn’t bend to lift her baby. Soon afterward, a tumour was detected in her spinal column which had to be operated upon immediately. Colonel Bikram Singh, Deepa's husband was away in Kargil when she shot 163 stitches between her shoulder blades. And while she was warned that there would be some loss of movement post-surgery, her spinal cord was so damaged that she was rendered paralyzed from the chest down. Unfazed, the brave Deepa Malik overcame a spinal tumour, 31 surgeries and 183 stitches at 26 and went on to become a state-level cricketer for Rajasthan despite paralytic shocks that had persisted since age eight.

Deepa, who was honored with the Arjuna Award in 2012, is associated with the Himalayan Motorsports Association and Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, undertaking an eight-day, Raid De Himalaya trip, including a 1700-km drive in sub-zero temperatures and an 18000-feet ascent.