ZERO-3-3

Kolkata-born, 1982. Kaustav didn't chase music so much as inherit it — his father put Mohd. Rafi in his ears before he ever touched a guitar, and that's still the root of everything he plays. College cracked the door open wider: western classical, early jazz, swing — a taste that quietly explains why his rhythm work never sits still.

Long before Zero-3-3, there was St. Louis, Missouri — where Kaustav teamed up with friends on The Rusty Strings, a genuinely polished production: professional studios, rented equipment, high-production-value videos, the works, all under a dedicated production house. Then came Montreal, where he, Rajarshi, and Arijit connected over that same shared love of music — casual jamming that grew, session by session, into a real band with a real mission: bringing South Asian music to the city's stages. Kaustav was there from the very first note.

By day, he's a service delivery manager at Morgan Stanley Montreal — all precision and calm under pressure, which might explain a lot about how he holds a band together. Somewhere in between, he cut his teeth with Procheshta in 2019 on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, then turned COVID lockdown into a launchpad — building a home studio and scoring background music for short films.

That studio didn't stay a solo project. It's now Zero-3-3's rehearsal space — the band jams out of his house. He's also the one behind the camera and the editing timeline, cutting content for the band's socials alongside Sukanya, and quietly geeking out on sound sampling and production software to get their covers sounding just right.

On stage, watch for the tell: mid-song, he throws a small smirk around the group — a silent "we good?" to the rest of the band. Nobody handed him the leadership. He just never stopped checking in, and somewhere along the way that became the job.

Off stage: father to a 13-year-old, Saint-Constant local, and currently president of the Indian Bengali Association of Montreal.

There's a version of Sukanya that holds a PhD in Biophysics and now researches microbiology as a postdoctoral fellow at Université de Montréal. There's another version that trained under a lineage running straight back to the Banaras Gharana — first under her uncle, Shri Subhashish Chakraborty, then under Shri Falguni Roy, with a stretch studying briefly under the great Vidushi Kaushiki Chakraborty herself. Somehow, both of these people are the same person, and both show up every time she sings.

Her voice carries that classical training in its bones, but she's never boxed herself into it — light music, semi-classical, contemporary fusion all sit comfortably in her range. Before Montreal, she was already an independent artist, theatre actor, and composer across Kolkata and Pune, so the stage was never new territory. Now she fronts Zero-3-3 as lead vocalist, and it shows: she doesn't just hit the notes, she performs them.

Off the mic, ask literally anyone in the band and they'll tell you the same thing — Sukanya is the heart of the group. She's the one everyone, band members and their families alike, has quietly adopted as the baby sister of the crew. Brilliant, warm, and somehow never lets either side of her life outshine the other.

Some voices are trained. Abhiram's was forged — grounded in Carnatic classical tradition, the kind of discipline that turns a song into architecture. He doesn't just sing traditional Annamacharya Keerthanas at Shringeri Vidya Bharathi Foundation Canada events — he commands them, treating centuries-old devotional compositions like they were written for exactly this moment, on exactly this stage.

Long before Zero-3-3, the spotlight had already found him. In 2010, he stepped into the pressure cooker of televised competition on Gemini TV's Sangeetha Mahayuddham, trading verses with the region's best under lights that don't forgive a wrong note. But the real measure of an artist is who trusts them with a stage — and Abhiram earned a trust few singers ever will. Performing for the Concern India Foundation and the SOFKIN Songfest, he shared a mic with K.S. Chithra — a National Award-winning voice behind thousands of recordings across languages, one of the most revered and demanding playback singers India has ever produced. You don't end up on a bill next to a legend like that by accident. It takes a voice that can genuinely hold its own in that company — and Abhiram's did.

By day, there's a whole other Abhiram — a sharp, credentialed professional running the show as Learning Experience Designer & Account Lead at PamTen Inc., a Computer Science degree from JNTU and a stint at Amazon behind him. It's the kind of contrast that makes the stage version hit even harder: the calm, methodical strategist by daylight who transforms, mic in hand, into something entirely more electric after dark.

Off stage, home is Pointe-Claire, life with his wife, and a Maltipoo named Oly who runs the household with zero regard for anyone's schedule. And when Formula 1 season is live, Abhiram is fully in it — tracking every lap, every overtake, fully committed to Lewis Hamilton the way only a true fan commits. Same intensity as the stage, just aimed at a different kind of race.

Rajarshi is one of the three original sparks behind Zero-3-3 — he, Kaustav, and Arijit connected in Montreal over nothing more than a shared love of music, and what started as casual jamming turned into a real mission: bringing South Asian music to the city's stages. Twenty-plus years into a career as an animator — currently a Senior Gameplay Animator at 2K Vancouver — he brings the same instinct for timing and rhythm to the kit that he brings to a frame-by-frame sequence.

Off stage, the résumé keeps going: animation and short filmmaking on the creative side, football on the fan and player side — he still turns out for local teams in Vancouver, so this isn't couch punditry. He's also a die-hard Manchester United supporter, which — let's be honest — takes a certain amount of resilience these days, and switches allegiance to Germany the moment the World Cup rolls around, presumably for a taste of actually winning something. He's also lived across multiple countries, Mexico among them, which maybe explains why nothing about touring or travel ever seems to faze him.

Here's the thing about Rajarshi, though: about a year and a half ago, work took him to Vancouver — full-time, across the country from the rest of the band. Most drummers would've called that the end. Rajarshi flew back to Montreal to play a show with Zero-3-3 anyway. Founding member, current member, distance be damned.

And when he is behind the kit, don't expect it to be predictable — he's known for slipping in a little mischief mid-set, a surprise entrance or a playful curveball the rest of the band has to catch in real time. Keeps everyone on their toes, including the crowd.