He was the man with the golden voice. Amazingly, asheem sang while playing, with remarkable clarity and ease, a difficult art almost never done by indian percussionists. Asheem's rhythm structures were interestingly his own, contributing a large part to indian ocean's signature rhythms, while the melodies he created were wonderfully different. He loved improvising vocal lines on stage. He played traditional indian percussion instruments in completely innovative ways, and even played rhythm structures on a bass guitar! Brought up in an atmosphere of indian classical, folk and other indian forms, asheem showed his rhythmic spark at an extremely early age, amazing musicians who learnt that he never had any formal training.

Asheem was mr tangent, king of the non-sequitur. Nobody (including asheem) understood how his brain worked, and he's won many an argument hands-down with his unique brand of logic, such as: "has pele ever sold chole bhatura? No!" asheem was the founder and resident god of the 'soch mat' (don't think) school of thought. Permanently in search of a permanent residence, we're still trying to decide if he was incredibly determined or incredibly flakey. He was into osho, numerology, astrology, naturotherapy, yoga, mediation - you name it. Asheem's spiritual quest for the truth was almost as continual as his quest for a house. He used to be pretty much computer illiterate, but was actually spotted doing e-mail in later years. His cheerful philosophy was "sab badmash hai". He read books that nobody else read - sometimes not even the author. Like susmit, his musical education was pretty much self-taught.