Zubeen da, voice of a generation, who listened to his own conscience

On Friday afternoon, he died in Singapore in a scuba diving accident. He was there for the North East India Festival, organised by the High Commission of India, as a Cultural Brand Ambassador.

“We have heard that he had gone for scuba diving and began experiencing breathing complications. The people from the Assam Association Singapore, who were with him, rushed him to a hospital, where he was admitted to the ICU. He passed away there,” said a publicity official with the festival.

Calling the loss “tragic beyond words,” Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Assam had “lost one of its favourite sons”.

“I am in a loss of words to describe what Zubeen meant for Assam… His voice had an unmatched ability to energise people and his music spoke directly to our minds and souls. He has left a void that will never be filled. Our future generations will remember him as a stalwart of Assam’s culture, and his works will inspire many more talented artists in the days and years to come. Beyond his music, his connection with people and passion for helping them will always be remembered,” he said.

The state government is in touch with the High Commissioner of India, Shilpak Ambule, for the return of his body to Assam. Among those who posted condolences were Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi.

Garg’s professional music career began in 1992 with his album Anamika. With its zippy riffs and his young powerful voice, his music – which ranged from upbeat romantic ‘Maya’ to the melancholy ‘Mayabini Ratir Bukut’ – was unmistakeably “modern”, bringing him overnight success, especially with the state’s youth, and earning him the popular epithet of “Assam’s heartthrob.”

He went on to sing thousands of songs, not just in Assamese but also in Hindi and Bengali, as well as many other languages including Bodo, Nepali, Tiwa, Karbi, and even Bhojpuri and Tamil. He also found his place in Mumbai’s Hindi film industry and a national audience, most notably with the 2006 hit ‘Ya Ali’ from the film Gangster.

But Garg’s appeal and influence spread far beyond his prolific music career.

“Zubeen was an influence for the masses and his contributions to this society include how we used to selflessly talk about humanity. He always knew that he had this influence deep within him even when he had first come to Guwahati as a youngster from a small town in Jorhat. He was then a student in B. Borooah College and he had not even made his break in the music world. But even then, I never saw him walking alone; he always had an entourage, a fan following,” said his close associate and theatre personality Sattyakee D’Com Bhuyan.

And he was not afraid to use his influence for the causes that he believed in. As discontent swelled in Assam against the Citizenship Amendment Bill in January 2019, he penned a strong open letter to the then Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, asking him to stand against the Bill and threatening to launch an agitation against it. When mass protests broke out later that year in December 2019 against the enactment of the Bill, he joined in and addressed gatherings.

On Friday, Sonowal was among thousands who recalled Garg fondly: “This is an irreparable loss for Assam, our nation, and the entire world of music. Zubeen Garg was the heartbeat of a generation and his voice was a powerful symbol of pride for millions.”

“He was strongly individualistic in his thought process and was uncompromising about things he thought were right,” said his friend Bhuyan. This also made him no stranger to controversy, and he repeatedly defied diktats by insurgent group ULFA warning singers to not perform Hindi songs at Bihu functions, the biggest mass cultural events in the state, even at the expense of being asked by event organisers to stop his performance.

But his iconoclasm never cost him his fans. Jaya Duarah, a frequent organising member of these functions, recalled a recent event. “Even an hour after it ended, there were hundreds of youth waiting, not letting him leave the venue. Even after so many years, they all wanted to get a chance to meet him, to touch him.”