An 85-year-old man in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar was unaware of what hit the northeastern State on September 19, soon after the news that singer-composer Zubeen Garg died by drowning in Singapore. Two days later, as fans surrounded Garg’s mortal remains in a glass coffin placed almost at the centre of Guwahati’s Arjun Bhogeswar Baruah Sports Complex, the octogenarian struggled to recognise the superstar’s face from the close-up on the television screen.
It took Mohan Madhab Baruah a long time to make his father, battling amnesia, realise the loss – for him and most others in Assam. His memory jogged, albeit temporarily, Bhogeswar Baruah’s eyes turned moist, and he wished he could run to see one of his favourite nephews for the last time at a sports complex named after him, about 360 kilometres west of his Sivasagar home.
“Zubeen addressed my father as Borta (uncle, elder to one’s father) and the two respected each other’s craft and accomplishments. My father, who valued fitness, would advise him to be disciplined and take care of his health,” the junior Baruah said.
The first Assamese to win a gold medal at an international event, Bhogeswar Baruah is a living legend in Assam. More than three decades after he won the 800-metre race at the 1966 Asian Games, he came across a young singer-composer, who went on to have a cult following for his romantic, rebellious, melancholic, devotional, and festive songs that struck a chord with people across age groups.
If Garg was like a nephew or son to Assam’s ‘Generation B’, he was the dada or elder brother to ‘Generation Z’, who took to the streets in sorrow and anger after his body reached Guwahati from Singapore via New Delhi on September 21.
The ‘B’ stands for Bhupen Hazarika, Assam’s only other cultural icon whose death on November 5, 2011, triggered a mass mourning, and the ‘Z’ is for Zubeen. But while the admirers of the former, battling ill-health in a Mumbai hospital for five months, expected the inevitable, the latter’s passing at 52 shocked his fans, largely because of the circumstances that led to his death in Singapore.
Assamese singer Rahul Rajkhowa remembers Zubeen Garg
Assamese singer Rahul Rajkhowa remembers Zubeen Garg
| Video Credit:
The Hindu
Love and grief
Two of Assam’s better-known Gen Zubeen sportspeople, boxer Lovlina Borgohain and cricketer Riyan Parag, underline what his songs and persona, defying the social norms, meant. “We lost not only a legendary artist but also a piece of our soul,” the 27-year-old Borgohain, who won a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics, said. “He personified the character and grit people of this region who have to fight our way through to get what we want,” Parag, 23, said.
Dhritiman Phukan, a 52-year-old film actor, explained why there was so much more to his friend Zubeen’s personality beyond his music and compositions, and why he appealed to sportspeople. “He would go out of his way to help them. There was this young footballer who got a chance to play and practise with the Manchester United Football Club. When news appeared in the local media about his modest background, the State government stepped in to help him with a financial grant. Zubeen decided to pay double the amount given by the government,” he said.
Singer Zubeen Garg’s body being taken for cremation as thousands pour onto the streets for a last glimpse, in Guwahati on September 21.
| Photo Credit:
RITU RAJ KONWAR
The spontaneous outpouring of love and grief on the streets of Assam for Garg led to the inevitable comparison between him and music maestro Hazarika. Before Zubeen emerged in the mid-1990s, the folk-inspired melodies with socially conscious lyrics of Hazarika – he is fondly called Sudhakantha (nectar-voiced) – shaped Assam’s popular consciousness. While Zubeen retained those elements, he infused his compositions with youthful energy, seamlessly blending folk and western instruments. The raw energy and the high pitch of his vocal cords appealed to a generation, which kept the faith in bands like Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses, and Pink Floyd.
Fans and critics agree he was a rockstar whose songs expressed universal emotions – love and longing, separation and nostalgia, resistance and celebration – but in a distinctly local idiom. Through his emotional vocabulary, Garg helped normalise pride in speaking and singing in Assamese at a time when English often dominated aspirational spaces. He had, however, sung in 40 languages, many from the northeast, but also in Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam.
Young musicians emulated him for staying with their mother tongue while experimenting with global sounds. He also revitalised Borgeet, devotional songs composed by saint-reformer Srimanta Sankaradeva and his disciple Madhabdeva in the 15th-16th centuries.
Garg for animals
Fellow artists say Garg was more than an entertainer. His songs gave a cultural and political confidence to a generation navigating the pressures of globalisation and migration. For the Assamese community elsewhere in India or overseas, his voice felt like home, and his songs as a bridge between cultural roots and cosmopolitan life.
“His voice was a shrine, blessing us with a music that was both divine and disarmingly human. That voice carried tenderness and rebellion together. It could soothe like a mother’s lullaby and sting like truth hurled at hypocrisy. In every note, there was both fire and prayer,” said Sattyakee D’Com Bhuyan, a teacher-theatre personality, who acted with Garg in his blockbuster film Mission China. The film, made on an unprecedented scale, virtually revived Assamese cinema at its most critical phase.
He said Garg silently professed empathy, sustainability, and inclusivity before they became slogans. “He wore empathy as skin, not an ornament. He lived for the people, with the people, helping many of them financially. Animals trusted him, as if sensing a kinship, as if he was less human and more elemental, closer to the earth’s original design,” he said.
Garg did not just adopt stray cats and dogs, he also gave them his surname, sometimes releasing an injured animal with a full name. In 2018, PETA India recognised his efforts with its Hero to Animals award, while the Kaziranga-based Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation considered him a key partner in wildlife rescue efforts. The singer-composer was also known as a green warrior, often opposing projects that entailed tree felling. Whenever Jadav Payeng, the Forest Man of India, visited Guwahati from near Jorhat, he would gift saplings to Garg. He planted many of these at his residence-cum-studio in Guwahati’s Kharghuli area.
Just as his iconic song Mayabini Raatir Bukut (In the embrace of the magical night) became an anthem for fans after his death, planting a sapling of the nahar or Assam ironwood has become a movement. “Where there’s nahar, there’s Zubeen,” Garg used to say.
Born rebel
In the early 1990s, when Assam was going through a dark phase of violence and militancy, Garg broke into the music scene with the first album, Anamika, which brought a message of hope. Tracks like Pakhi Pakhi Mon became love ballads for a generation. Over time, his songs and lyrics reflected the changing moods of Assam — from youthful love to political defiance, from nostalgia to cultural pride.
“Zubeen Garg cannot die. He was never just a man — he is a thought, and thoughts cannot be killed. He is a voice, and voices echo long after they are gone. He is a feeling, and feelings live forever in the hearts they have touched,” said Bondeep Sharma, the lead actor of a recent Assamese blockbuster film Bhaimonda, in which Garg composed and sang Era Eri, his longest song at 8 minutes and 35 seconds.
A non-conformist whose lifestyle drew criticism, Garg appealed to the people on the streets, with whom he would sip a cup of tea or share a plate of snacks. He was also outspoken, questioning those in charge, whether they were political, religious, or military. He would announce during a performance, as he swigged from a bottle, that he was drinking; sometimes, he would take a nap on stage. He crusaded against animal sacrifice in temples and publicly discarded his logun or janeu (sacred thread of Brahmins), attracting the ire of the priests of Guwahati’s Kamakhya Temple. He dropped his caste surname of Borthakur and took on his gotra (lineage) name instead.
He also enraged the abbots of Majuli’s Vaishnav monasteries by insisting that Krishna was a man, not a god. In 2019, he threw his weight behind groups opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, going on to sing Politics nokoriba bondhu (Don’t indulge in politics, friend). Earlier, he defied the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom’s diktat to sing Hindi and Bengali songs during Bihu, Assam’s biggest festival. Culture should be unfettered and diverse, he told the outfit. Garg loved books and reading, discussing Che Guevara and Friedrich Nietzsche with friends.
Although he was influenced by Buddhism, Garg believed he was a nastik (atheist). This belief made him claim, “I have no caste, no religion, no God; I am free; I am Kanchenjunga.” The freedom that he valued made him spurn a career in Bollywood after he had everything going with hits such as Ya Ali and Jaane kya chahe mann.
“I live like a king here (in Assam) and a king should never leave his kingdom,” he told novelist Rita Choudhury in one of his last interviews. Assam, indeed, was shut after the news of his death ‘under mysterious circumstances’ reached every home.
Death under difficult circumstances
Family, friends, fans, and his doctor say that Garg was not in the best of health. Given his health condition, Garg’s death while allegedly attempting to swim in the sea during a yacht trip triggered suspicion. In the line of fire were his manager, Siddharth Sharma, members of the Assam Association of Singapore, who took him out on the trip, and Shyamkanu Mahanta, the chief organiser of the North East India Festival in Singapore, where Garg was scheduled to perform.
Bowing to public pressure, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma ordered a second autopsy – after the non-invasive post-mortem conducted in Singapore – on Garg’s body hours before it was cremated at Sonapur, about 30 km east of Guwahati, on September 23. He also constituted a Special Investigation Team to probe the circumstances leading to Garg’s death and had summons issued to the accused. At least six people, including Garg’s musicians, have been arrested.
“I have no caste, no religion, no God; I am free; I am Kanchenjunga.” – Zubeen Garg
| Photo Credit:
PTI
“We will not spare anyone if found guilty in the case,” the Chief Minister said, urging Garg’s increasingly impatient fans baying for the blood of those who “emotionally blackmailed” him to “die in Singapore”. Fans have threatened to raze the houses of some of the accused while the All Assam Lawyers’ Association has appealed to its members not to defend the accused.
In the interview with Choudhury, where Garg speaks about balancing heart and mind and navigating uncertainty, he referred to the central theme of his last film Roi Roi Binale, where he plays the lead role of a blind singer. “You should come and see my film. It starts with the sea and ends with the sea.”
sandeep.phukan@thehindu.co.in
rahul.karmakar@thehindu.co.in
