About Us
Sadhana Travel Services is a niche travel agency set up by Ashutosh Sharma when he was just 19 years old. Though it has a loyal corporate and individual clients for business and leisure travel, and has been organising customised tours in India and Bhutan for travellers coming to India with varying budgets and bucket lists, its reputation over the years has been built on its commitment to offer 24x7 services for urgent travel, often reading and preempting the news cycle around the world.
Sadhana Travel Services is known for handling last-minute, door-to-door travel and logistics for journalists and NGOs traveling to places where news is breaking and, often, people are being evacuated.
Ukraine, Libya (during the war), Tsunami, Sri Lanka, etc… Sadhana Travels has handled them all. In fact, the first thing Ashutosh has done every morning for the last 28 years is to switch on BBC and CNN to check what's happening and if there’s a crisis somewhere, get ready to send people there.
Client list: Fabindia, Anokhi, JVF, Associated Press, The Economist, The New York Times, Washington Post, Packard Foundation, MSFHI, NPR, Swiss Radio, BrutIndia, Australia India Institute, CSDR, photographers Prashant Panjiar, Daniel Berehulak and Kevin Frayer, as well as Putney Student Travel.
Sadhana Travels, named after Ashutosh's mother who passed away in 1993, was started in 1994 in Nehru Place, Delhi’s bustling commercial and business district, with the simple philosophy that it will never market its services, instead letting the quality of its services, work ethic and customers speak for it.
In the summer of 2024, Sadhana Travels turns 30! As it gets ready to celebrate the completion of a momentous journey, it does so with pride at never having to market itself.
Amarrass Records was born in 2009 out of an itch.
Ashutosh has always been passionate about music and wanted to do something around it, something immersive. Though he would travel all over the world to listen to amazing music, he was always frustrated with the music scene in Delhi....as one would only get to hear the regular greats in classical music and mostly known/repeat bands at bars/clubs, we hardly heard any fresh music/new and old musicians who were not famous!
By some happy twist of fate, around the same time Ashutosh was in touch with Pakistan’s Mekaal Hasan Band to get their music out. To do this, he had to buy out the band’s contract from a record label in India. But he figured he couldn't write to the label from a travel agency, so Ashutosh decided to launch a label with his team at Sadhana and called his childhood friend Ankur Malhotra (based in Madison, US, and involved in the music scene there as a festival producer, RJ, DJ), and told him, “We are starting a record label!”
Ankur and Ashutosh had grown up together in Delhi in the 1980s and 90s listening to Sufi and Hindi music, eventually gravitating towards Western rock, blues, jazz and more. Those were the days when music was difficult to access in India, which was just liberalized. Music concerts were few and far between, and the music “cassettes” and CDs available in the market were controlled by big recording labels whose main interest was in Bollywood songs. So, Ankur and Ashutosh listened to and read whatever they could lay their hands on. And it was during this time that they came across folk historian Alan Lomax.
Lomax the musicologist had who traveled the American south recording previously unknown blues musicians. He brought the world’s attention to greats like protest singer Woody Guthrie and country blues singer Muddy Waters.
Amarrass’ first project with Mekaal didn’t work out as planned, but through his agency, Sadhana Travels, which was handling the travel for the Manganiyar Seduction team, Ashutosh came to know about the Manganiyars, their music and decided to record them and release their music — first on vinyl, CDs and, eventually on the streaming platforms.
It was around then that Ashutosh and Avirook went on went on the first field trip to Rajasthan, recording music and getting to know these musicians, their music and instruments. Later, they also went on a field trip to Shanti Niketan (WB) to record bauls and fakirs.
Subsequently, Ashutosh and Ankur ( equipped with an old analog, two track field recorder which Ashutosh's friend- a senior radio journalist fedexed him, with 10 -90 minutes tapes)....and the two went on their first field trip, recording the various artists in Rajasthan and released their first two DIY albums- single take- analog - 2 track recordings- Mitha Bol and Banko Ghodo (both were given5* by Songlines, UK).
Now, more than a decade later, the Amarrass label has over 14 albums, has created a music band — Barmer Boys, which went on to play at Coke Studio, played at some of the biggest festivals in the world from Roskilde to Womad, UK, and has also taken the music of Lakha Khan, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2021, from Jodhpur to Nashville and all over Europe.
In Jan 2010, the Amarrass Society for Performing Arts was created. A not for profit organisation, the society is devoted to archiving songbooks and reviving the craft of making folk instruments.
During their field trips to record music, Ashutosh and Ankur learnt that a master instrument maker, Shankara Suthar -- the only person in India who could make the Kamaicha — had shifted to Pune to make sofas!
After much effort, perseverance and persuasion, they called him back to the village and placed orders for him to make Kamaicha instruments. He's been crafting and repairing instruments ever since, and is now passing on the craft to his son, Mahender Suthar.
The Team
Ashutosh Sharma
Founder,
Sadhana Travel Services &
Amarrass Records
President,
Amarrass Society for Performing Arts
Ashutosh founded/started Sadhana Travel Services in 1994 at the age of 19, right after his 1st year college exams. He managed this with a loan from his father to pay three months’ rent for the office space and Rs 500 to open a bank account. The company he founded soon received IATA accreditation, making Ashutosh (still a teenager), the youngest IATA agent in India.
Through various ups and downs over the next 4-5 years, the company evolved to become one of the best travel agencies in India. Apart from managing the travel requirements of corporates, NGOs, individuals and launching a Tour division for customised trips within India in YEAR, Sadhana Travel’s reputation as the go-to agency grew with its handling of last-minute travel of foreign journalists based in or traveling to India to cover a crisis/breaking news.
The Bhuj earthquake, the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Massacre in the Nepalese Royal family… We’ve handled it all — from organising visas to booking air travel and rail/ground transportation, finding hotels that are efficient, conveniently located and have good Wifi.
All this requires skills, a vast network of contacts and friends, lots of preemptive thinking and action. And Sadhana Travels has one of the best teams to handle all sorts of travel needs of clients like Associated Press, Guardian and Time magazine, as well as Fabindia, Anokhi and Médecins Sans Frontières.
Jyoti Chopra
General Manager
Jyoti is the backbone of both Sadhana Travels and Amarrass Records. She has been handling air ticketing and client services operations for Sadhana Travels since 1999. From domestic travel within India to international air travel, from giving travel advice to arranging Visa facilitation, from handling date changes/cancellations to special requests – Jyoti handles it all with enviable calmness!
At Amarrass, she manages Amarrass!! From the production of the monthly Amarrass Nights to artist management, from travel related arrangements of the musicians to even ensuring the musicians and the team have been fed!
Rajendra Negi
Manager,
Inbound Tour & Logistics
Hailing from the beautiful mountain state of Uttarakhand, Rajendra works with travellers to create customised itineraries according to their needs and then simply manages it all — hotels, guides, transport to some specific place with specific requirements, including organising, on request, “an architecture tour with a local architect”.
A client has to name their desire, and Rajinder will get it done!
At Amarrass, Rajinder is involved with production/liaising with the authorities for permissions, licences, artist logistics and ensuring that they arrive on time and the show starts on time.