When Deepa herself started out as a female bouncer, everybody would consider a woman bouncer as incompetent, if not an altogether impossible entity. Naturally, the work they would receive in the initial days would be inherently trivial – assisting drunk women outside pub washrooms, for instance. Deepa would request authorities to offer more significant work to her, knowing well how she and her counterparts can excel at any job assigned to them. However, the event organisers would brush aside her repeated appeals terming women bouncers as ‘incapable’.

That’s when Deepa decided to move back from Mumbai to her hometown Pune and start her own team of women bouncers. She started Ranragini Academy around three years ago. At first, very few women stepped in.

The breakthrough came during the famous Ganesha Chaturthi in Pune, where 12 women trained by Deepa earned accolades for efficiently handling a maddening crowd and ensuring the safety of the women and the elderly. “They ensured each and every senior devotee can smoothly have the ‘Darshan’ of the deity. Never before has anyone seen such systematic management at Ganesh festival. Soon, we were showered with praise and flooded with calls from women willing to join Ranragini Academy,” Deepa shares.

How the women are trained at Ranragini

Deepa’s husband, Deepak Ramchandra Parab, is a cricket coach who assists Deepa in running the academy. “We have arranged for a comprehensive one-year training programme for each of the woman candidates who are then delegated to festivals, concerts or any other large event, all across Maharashtra. We have a fitness trainer, yoga enthusiast as well as a martial arts coach, aside from me and my husband, and together we provide different types of training to the women – ranging from body-building to self-defence,” she shares.
“All our personal savings go into the academy and for the women. I still live in a rented house,” Deepa reveals.

Most of the women at Ranragini are middle-aged, with no prior experience in this field. Many of them were housewives, overlooked and ill-treated often by their alcoholic husbands. Some used to work maids, with no dignified identity to their names. Some are widows and single mothers who had nowhere to go. Deepa decided to take up these helpless women under her onus and turn them into spirited fighters. She deliberately refrained from recruiting younger women in their 20s as she believes they should continue their education and exercise their potential in white-collared jobs.

“Madam is always there for us”

“My ladies have become exceedingly expert in managing events. Today, they can give a tough competition to the male bouncers. Also, women bouncers are preferred these days since women and children feel safer with them,” a proud Deepa shares.

Her students are all praises for their beloved Madam. “Madam is always there for us. Any little glitch we face at any event, she will sort it out in an instant,” Shweta and Bhagyashree resonate together, their voices brimming with admiration for Deepa.