Kanishka Sen is a close second to Tapas Sen as lighting designer in Bengali theatre. He had little prior interest in theatre or lights. The responsibility of lighting in a college play that brought him an award changed his priorities as well as the course of his life. He cut short his formal college education to enrol for a senior diploma in drama at the West Bengal Academy of Dance, Drama and Music. This institution was later merged with Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

Kanishka Sen began designing lights for Sundaram, a group formed by his friends Partha Pratim Chowdhury and Manoj Mitra. His first successes were with Rabindranath Tagore's dance-dramas Taser Desh i.e. 'Land of Cards' and Shyama. Shyama was directed by the singer Suchitra Mitra for her school Rabitirtha in 1964 and took to the USA. Later his service was requisitioned by established groups of Kolkata and beyond, for example Habib Tanvir, Ratan Thiyam, the Konarak and Khajurahodance festivals, and the Festivals of India in Japan and Germany.

Kanishka Sen assisted Tapas Sen in the lighting of Calcutta Repertory Theatre's Galileor jiban. He received stage lighting awards in 1982 for Nandikar's Football and in 1990 for Utpal Dutt's Laldurga i.e. 'Red Bastion'. Sen provided consultancy and expertise for auditoriums in Kolkata, Haora, and Santiniketan. He also taught lighting and stagecraft at the Department of Drama, Rabindra Bharati University.

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