Rajnesh Domalpalli comes from Hyderabad, in South India.

After completing a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from the IIT Bombay in '84 and an MS from SBU in '86, he worked in the silicon valley before completing an MFA at Columbia University in 2006.

Vanaja, his thesis film at Columbia, opened at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival and went on to garner 33 Intl. Awards including the Best First Feature at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. Roger Ebert, America’s Pulitzer Prize winning film critic, placed it in the Top 5 Foreign Films of 2007. In 2011, the Locarno Film Festival screened it in a retrospective on Indian cinema. The MPAA's Margaret Herrick Library has the script in its permanent archives.
 
His short story called "The Dowry" was broadcast by BBC’s World Service in sept '84 and aug '89. College was where he was introduced to south Indian classical music.
 
He is currently working on a literary novel which explores the relationship between a grandmother and her troubled granddaughter. Rajnesh splits time between Seattle and Hyderabad.