A life in the mountains.
A story that continues.

Dhananjay’s earliest education in people took place at his family’s café on The Mall in Shimla. Travellers arrived with accounts of places beyond the town; he listened while growing up around the everyday work of hospitality. The conversations offered a wider world, and the café offered a practical lesson in making people feel welcome.

In his own account of those years, he returned to the importance of listening. Everyone carried a story; a conversation could open a door. That attention to people remained part of his work when the café gave way to expeditions and, later, to film crews far from home.

As a teenager, Dhananjay volunteered as a marshal at the Himalayan Car Rally. Checkpoints, difficult terrain and the responsibility of working as part of a team gave him an early understanding of how much depended on preparation.

He went on to become a founding member of Team Avalanche, a motorsport club, and officiated events across North India. The experience developed an approach he would carry into production: think through the route, understand the conditions and make sure the people around you know their part.

The mountains also taught him to adapt. A well-prepared plan needed room for changing weather, changing roads and the decisions that could only be made on the ground.

Through HASTPA and MTB Himalaya, Dhananjay helped build a mountain-biking event in Himachal Pradesh that connected local terrain with an international community of riders. Organising the race brought together route planning, participants, sponsors, permissions and the many practical arrangements behind days spent in the mountains.

That work opened the way to cycling events on a different scale. His involvement in the Delhi Cyclothon and Tour de India took the same operational understanding into large public events and urban routes, including Mumbai and Nasik.

The setting changed, but the task remained familiar: bring people together around an ambitious journey and do the detailed work that made it possible.

In 2012, Dhananjay founded Being Out There, a boutique adventure travel outfit shaped by his experience of the Himalayas. Cycling, walking and road journeys brought travellers into Himachal and Ladakh, with personal involvement and local relationships at the centre of the experience.

The Manali–Leh ride became a defining part of that story. Between 2012 and 2017, the outfit organised 32 rides across the high-altitude route. Its work also grew to include Spiti cycling adventures, multi-activity Himalayan road trips and smaller fixed-departure journeys.

For Dhananjay, the value of travel reached beyond completing a route. His writing described journeys as opportunities to move beyond familiar limits, see differently and share an experience with other people. Being Out There gave that outlook a name and a home.

The opportunity to work on National Geographic’s Mission Arctic connected his adventure background with screen production. As a line producer and location consultant, Dhananjay combined logistics and local knowledge with creative input into the show’s activities.

That experience grew into work across reality television, travel series, films and automotive campaigns. Projects for production houses including Endemol Shine India, Banijay Asia and PowerDrift drew on the same strengths that had supported expeditions: an understanding of terrain, clear coordination and the ability to keep a team moving.

The work ranged from atmospheric rest houses for Parchayee to the mountain routes of The Great Escape, from a large crew on MTV Roadies Revolution to the 60-day Kashmir-to-Kanyakumari production. In each case, the creative ambition depended on a practical foundation.

InRahi became the home for that production work, bringing his experience of places and people into a dedicated line-production practice.

Dhananjay’s account of his life made room for more than professional milestones. Music had been a part of it since childhood. Listening and composing offered another way to engage with a story, away from the schedules and movement of a production.

Cooking brought a different kind of quiet. He wrote about finding peace in the kitchen and the pleasure of preparing something his son enjoyed. The attention to ingredients, timing and the person receiving a meal echoed the care that ran through his hospitality and outdoor work.

These details belong alongside the projects and expeditions. They give a fuller sense of the person behind InRahi: someone whose interests in people, place, music and making things were closely connected.

Dhananjay passed away in February 2026. His place in InRahi’s story remains that of its founder, and the work he built continues to inform the way the team approaches places, productions and people.

Sheetal Vasudev Ahluwalia, his wife and InRahi’s Co-Founder, had been part of that journey throughout. Today, she carries the vision forward with the team, regional associates and creative collaborators, developing the production work while keeping the connection to Being Out There alive.

The legacy is visible in the portfolio, but also in the relationships behind it: people who worked together on mountain roads, at film locations, on cycling routes and across the many journeys that brought InRahi into being.