We Wait and Weep in Silence — Only for Zubeen Garg
We search for Zubeen Garg everywhere, in every corner of Assam. Why has his death wounded the Assamese soul so deeply? What was the secret essence of his music? What new facets of his life are now coming to light? And why does the dead Zubeen feel infinitely more powerful than the living Zubeen ever did?
His death hurts beyond bearing because it was untimely, sudden, and heartbreaking. There is not a single person in Assam who did not know Zubeen—who had never heard his songs. An entire generation of boys and girls grew up intoxicated by his name. Even elders who once frowned at the wild energy he unleashed on stage (those very antics we now cherish as priceless treasures) are grieving today. Some of us used to be indifferent to him—yet even we had our favourite Zubeen songs. Those melodies still float through the skies and winds of Assam. So none of us was ever truly indifferent.
How could Zubeen—without warning, without a goodbye—simply vanish from among us? It felt impossible. When the news of his passing broke, every Assamese heart asked the same question in the same breath: “Is it true? Has Zubeen really left us?” In that terrible instant, an earthquake began inside Assam, and that tremor has not stopped even now. The fans are devastated—that is expected. But even those who were never fans before have become devotees after his death.
Zubeen’s passing has created an extraordinary situation in Assam. The government itself is shaken. Why has this happened? Why has his death caused such an uprooting cry across our land? Why are we all so shattered? The deepest reason is Zubeen’s singular genius and his extraordinary personality. To speak of Zubeen is to speak of music itself. He mastered every stream—classical, folk, modern. Though he sang mostly folk and modern songs, he could inhabit all three traditions with effortless grace. These three streams are wondrous: today’s modern becomes tomorrow’s folk, which becomes the classical of the day after—a river flowing eternally forward and backward through time.
The soul of music is melody (sur). Words live within the folds of melody. Bismillah Khan used to say, “Music is nothing but sur.” Melody has no geographical border; it travels on the wind. Yet it carries a local fragrance too—universal and rooted at once, “of the home and of the world.” Melody is immortal, indestructible. Its language belongs to all humanity. In Indian tradition, Vyasa spoke of 64 arts; in my eyes, music reigns supreme among them. Melody is the king; words are its crown.
Even when rooted in a particular soil, melody remains essentially universal. Why? Because it was born first from nature herself—mountains, rivers, skies, oceans, rain, thunder. These were the primal sources of sur. Over centuries it became refined and systematic, but its appeal remained universal. That is why music moves the human heart so powerfully. What was the true force behind Shankaradev’s influence in Assam? Religion, yes—but the medium was shravana and kirtan, the performing arts. Bargeet, ankiya bhaona, nam-prasanga—everything they created was musical at its core. Shankaradev and Madhavdev did not merely preach; they used music as an instrument of social transformation. Their legacy still lives in every ritual, every ceremony of Assam.
Jyotiprasad gave us cinema that only connoisseurs fully appreciated, but his songs belong to every Assamese heart. His films may have faded, but his music endures. The marrow of Jyotiprasad’s songs was the Indian freedom struggle—drawing melody from Shankar-Madhav, from Assamese folk traditions, from the world beyond. Bishnu Rabha’s music was shaped by the eternal beauty and pain of Assamese society. Bhupen Hazarika was the worthy inheritor of Jyoti and Bishnu. And then came Zubeen. For six hundred years, countless geniuses have enriched Assamese life, but the names that shine brightest are Shankar-Madhav, Jyoti-Bishnu-Bhupen… and now Zubeen. The common thread? Music. Music takes only a moment to hear, yet it can live for centuries.
The tradition of bargeet and nam-prasanga has survived through listening and singing across generations. I once drove from Guwahati to my village after my father’s death. Far away in the darkness, I heard the same melodies of nam-prasanga that my father used to sing—note for note, unchanged. That night, I understood: melody is immortal. Technology today can preserve everything, but the true life of music still depends on listeners who become participants—humming under their breath, singing in the shower, tapping the steering wheel, labourers whistling a tune as they work. In that sense, we are all co-creators of music.
Nature, human society, and music are intertwined in mysterious ways. What is the purpose of art? Decades ago, the Marxist thinker Bhaskar Nandi said, “It is difficult to pin down the exact role of art in society; propaganda art is a separate matter.” John Ruskin believed art must unite nature, truth, beauty, and honest labour. Tolstoy and Gandhi agreed: art that does not serve humanity has no meaning. Adorno and Lukács viewed art through the lens of class struggle and warned against reducing it to a commodity. Daniel Barenboim, speaking with Edward Said, offered this luminous thought: “Music is the best school of life. It reveals the infinite variety of the world and of human relationships. Yet paradoxically, the same music can help us forget everything—it can be an escape. This duality makes music endlessly fascinating. We do not judge music; music judges us—by the way it moves us, by the response it draws from our deepest self.”
All these theories are profound, yet none can contain Zubeen. Genius always transcends definition. Critics once said of the Hindi writer Phanishwar Nath Renu: “To properly evaluate Renu, we will need to invent a new critical language.” The same is true of Zubeen Garg. Most extraordinary geniuses are self-taught: Rabindranath, Einstein, Beethoven, Steve Jobs… and Zubeen. He walked his own path, answerable to no one.
Bhupen Hazarika grew up in the fire of the freedom movement. Zubeen came of age in the sterile, consumerist 1990s and 2000s. Yet in that barren time, he created an oasis of feeling. His early love songs—Mon Jole, Anamika, Mayabini, O Boahi—are explosions of youthful, physical, mysterious passion. No one before him had sung about the body and desire with such unapologetic joy in Assamese music. Rabindranath’s songs embrace every shade of human emotion without preaching. Zubeen’s songs do the same.
He sang bargeets, folk songs, bihu, film songs—in Assamese, Bodo, Mising, Karbi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, even Arabic-inflected Sufi. He once laughed and said, “The only thing left for me to sing is Biya Naam.” He sang from the depths of his being—chest, belly, soul. Listen to “Sapon sapon jen mor bhalpowa boroloi”—the voice does not come merely from the throat; it surges from the core of life itself.
Did Zubeen have doubts, contradictions? Of course. He wrestled with the relationship between art and society. When asked if music can bring revolution, he quoted Che Guevara via Bob Marley: “Yes, a guitar can start a revolution.” He never sat on protest platforms, but he protested with every song, every act of kindness toward the poor.
And now the final question: Why is the dead Zubeen more powerful than the living Zubeen? Because while he lived, opportunists and sycophants crowded around him. The moment he died, they vanished. What remains are the millions who loved him without asking for anything in return—the true source of his strength. Death has stripped away every flaw, leaving only fragrance. His fans do not dwell on his limitations; they immerse themselves in his immortal creations. They remember how he helped the poor, how he said “I have no caste, no religion,” how he stood with the weak, how he loved animals and rivers and trees.
The living Zubeen could be criticised. The dead Zubeen is beyond criticism—he has become myth, anthem, conscience. Like Roland Barthes’ “death of the author,” the meaning of Zubeen now belongs to us. We must expand his vision progressively, the way a living constitution is interpreted—toward greater harmony, greater humanity, greater courage. Zubeen is not in the earth at Sorusojai. He lives in every speaker, in every heartbeat, in every young voice that tries—and fails gloriously—to reach the impossible heights of “Ratipuwa.”
The vibrant, restless, tender Zubeen lives forever in our hearts. And so we wait, we search, we weep in silence—only for you, Zubeen. Only for you.