Rajnesh Domalpalli

He comes from Hyderabad, in South India. After completing his B. Tech in EE from the IIT and an MS from SUNY, SB he worked as a computer engineer before deciding to take up film at Columbia University in New York and graduating with an MFA. In college he was also introduced to South Indian classical music on the veena, before following it up with several years of training in the vocal tradition. During studies, he dabbled in penning short stories during his spare time. One of them, The Dowry, was broadcast by BBC World Service. Vanaja is his thesis at Columbia. It won the Best Debut award at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival.