Back in the mists of time, actually 1984, Susmit met Asheem and their somewhat focused jamming sessions resulted in a few concerts. Asheem loved the sound of the new style/approach that Susmit had evolved. Legend has it that Susmit learnt the nuances of rhythm from Asheem - not your basic 4/4 beat, but the mysteries of chhand and jhonk and taal.
Susmit on guitar and Asheem on tabla and drums - no vocals anywhere in sight. In
1990, Indian Ocean was formed: Susmit and Asheem, with a succession of bass players, a female keyboard player for a short while, and many transformations.
In 1990, with Shaleen Sharma on drums, Indian Ocean recorded their first demo, an incredible forty five minutes and seven songs in a single day!
In 1991, Rahul, a school mate of Susmit, joined the band on bass. After some persuasion, and on the basis of the talent evident in the demo tape, HMV agreed to record Indian Ocean's first album in Calcutta. It took another year for it to be released. During the first five years of the band's existence, they played a mere four concerts! An inauspicious start, perhaps. However, through dogged persistence and hard work, the album went on to sell over 40,000 copies. At that time, it became the highest selling record by any Indian band ever.
Shaleen, the drummer, left the band in March 1994. In his place came Amit, just out of his teens and still busy with college examinations! Thus, the current line-up of Indian Ocean came into being
They practiced and practiced: the sound became crisper, vocals were added. In the meanwhile, Susmit and Asheem quit their jobs, and became fathers. Music became their sole source of income; when not playing concerts, they odd-jobbed on music for serials, ads and documentaries.
Then, one fateful New Year's day, Indian Ocean played at Mandi House in Delhi, after waiting for seven hours to go on stage. It was a memorable performance; the crowd loved it, and the band realized that, by sheer chance, their next album was born. A recording of the show was released a few months later by a company named Independent Music, formed just for the purpose of releasing the album 'Desert Rain.' Suddenly, the press was quite interested in this "new" band. There were TV and radio interviews. Quite abruptly, everyone appeared to be talking about Indian Ocean!
Susmit, Amit and Rahul had the honor of playing a concert with the legendary violin player Pandit L. Subramanyam, while Asheem played in a concert with the renowned folk singer Pete Seeger. The whole band also jammed with renowned Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino in Delhi, and played with many great Japanese jazz musicians during their Japan tour in 2002. Rahul and Amit consider themselves blessed to have performed on stage with the renowned percussionist, Vikoo Vinayakram, and his son Selva Ganesh, at Almora in 2003.
The band went on the road, playing in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Maharashtra. The breakthrough into the mainstream came some time in late 1998, when Times Music signed up the band. A few months later, Indian Ocean was invited to play at the Millennium Celebrations at Khajuraho. The Hon. President of India, Shri K. R. Narayanan, was one of the first few people to hear the composition they had created for this event. That piece also happened to become a high point of their album, Kandisa. Recorded at one of the most state-of-the-art, professional studios in Bombay, it was a far cry from their first experience in the less than salubrious environs of HMV's Dum Dum studio in Calcutta, with their perpetually inebriated sound recording engineer and crummy mikes.
The album was released in March 2000. It went on to become one of the best-loved albums ever produced in India. Kandisa acquired cult status and propelled Indian Ocean into the status of India’s most original and creative band. The band left Indian shores for the first time ever in August 2001, played their first concert abroad in London, and then went on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they played eighteen concerts in fourteen days, and were nominated the Pick of the Fringe. They returned to the Fringe in 2002 and 2003. In 2002, the band played thirty seven concerts abroad, across four continents, in New Zealand, USA, UK, Japan, Australia, and Indonesia. The following year, they toured the UK twice, returned to Australia, went to Germany, and then on to Singapore. In September, they went to the beautiful Reunion Island, deep in the heart of the Indian Ocean! In the meanwhile, they did not give up playing all over India, in not only the bigger metros, but also in smaller cities such as Lucknow, Baroda, Jamshedpur, Chandigarh, and the like.
Jhini, the fourth album, was recorded at Kosmic Studios in Varadeipalyam, AP, in the midst of fields and hills, a hundred kilometers north of Chennai. The album was released in May 2003, the band had their first video made, and was declared the MTV Artists of the Month. They went on to compose music for their first major full-length feature film in early 2004: Black Friday, a film based on the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993.
Susmit on guitar and Asheem on tabla and drums - no vocals anywhere in sight. In
1990, 
Susmit, Amit and Rahul had the honor of playing a concert with the legendary violin player Pandit L. Subramanyam, while Asheem played in a concert with the renowned folk singer Pete Seeger. The whole band also jammed with renowned Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino in Delhi, and played with many great Japanese jazz musicians during their Japan tour in 2002. Rahul and Amit consider themselves blessed to have performed on stage with the renowned percussionist, Vikoo Vinayakram, and his son Selva Ganesh, at Almora in 2003.