1984–1990: Early years 1980s: Formation In the early 1980s, Asheem Chakravarty played
tabla for a
Bengali band Niharika. In 1984, Susmit Sen, a fan of Niharika, met him during a concert. For the next 3 years, with Sen as the guitarist and Chakravarty on tabla and drums, they experimented with their music without writing original lyrics. Apart from a concert at
Roorkee University, there were not many notable performances by them.
1990: Demo tape The name Indian Ocean was suggested by Sen's father in 1990. Shaleen Sharma was taken on as the drummer, and Indrajit Dutta and Anirban Roy as bassists. The band recorded a demo, with the help of Sen selling his electric guitar to raise the required money. The tape was 45 minutes long and consisted of 7 songs, all recorded in a single day. Despite the rushed recording, the quality of the demo tape impressed
His Master's Voice (HMV) and they were offered an album deal.
1991–2009: Asheem Chakravarty era Rahul Ram and debut album In 1991, Rahul Ram who was Sen's schoolmate at
St. Xaviers, Delhi, joined the band replacing Anirban Roy on bass. They started work on their first album. The eponymous debut album came out in 1993, and it sold over 40,000 copies within a year of its release. It became the highest selling record by any Indian band at that time.
Amit Kilam In 1994, drummer Shaleen Sharma left the band. He was replaced by Amit Kilam who was much younger than the other band members. This line-up with Susmit Sen, Asheem Chakravarty, Rahul Ram and Amit Kilam became the most recognisable and the most successful in the band's timeline so far. Since then, they have rolled out a live album, which was recorded and mixed on two tracks by Vikram Mishra, titled
Desert Rain, followed by two studio albums,
Kandisa and
Jhini. They also composed the
soundtrack of the
Anurag Kashyap directorial
Black Friday and contributed a couple of tracks to the soundtrack of
Peepli Live.
Death of Asheem Chakravarty Asheem Chakravarty was hospitalised in
Doha in October, after suffering a heart attack. He was comatose for a brief period and recovered well. On 25 December 2009, he died in New Delhi due to a cardiac arrest.
2010 - present: Post-Asheem era 16/330 Khajoor Road Indian Ocean have not announced any permanent replacement for Chakravarty. However, they have brought Himanshu Joshi to fill in for Chakravarty's vocals and Tuheen Chakravarty for tabla and other percussion which Asheem Chakravarty used to play. The band announced release of their first studio album after the death of Asheem Chakravarty,
16/330 Khajoor Road. The band made the album available for download from their site by adding one new song each month. The album
16/330 Khajoor Road was released in a two-CD pack. The album was recorded at Kshitij Studios, New Delhi and mixed by Aakash Gupta and Amit Kilam. Susmit Sen left the band in 2013 and was replaced by Nikhil Rao. The band released the album,
Tandanu, in 2014, which was described by
Rolling Stone India as "the band's best album yet". The album featured guest appearances from
Shankar Mahadevan,
Karsh Kale, and
Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Later, in 2015, the band was highly acclaimed by the critics and audience alike for their music in the film
Masaan. The band released their eighth studio album,
Tu Hai, their first album in 10 years, in 2023. In 2026, they featured on musician Chaar Diwaari's EP,
Parvana, on the song "Aashiqana" alongside Diwaari and Gini. ==Band members==