Zubeen Garg

Witnessing a hero become history is a dreadful rite of passage that an unfortunate generation comes to bear. Amongst the swathes of our great forefathers who have risen, revolted and fostered a renewed sense of identity in our people through the ages, only a handful of them leave a legacy that finds its way deep inside the hearts of millions. A legacy not embroiled in the fragments of an unpardonable past. A legacy beyond par. A pure, unblemished memory of a man who ascended to immortality.

I hail from the land of Assam in NorthEast India. A place known for its tea gardens, the one-horned rhino and Zubeen Garg, a most prized denizen of our culture who will remain evermore so.

The morning I woke up under a sky that missed him, I felt my bones teeter with a peculiar genre of grief. The grief for the loss of someone you never met but whose voice resonates in every fibre of your being. I remember the sullen faces of the boys, cooped up in their bed, refusing to wake up to the grinding reality of the events that had occurred the previous afternoon. The guitar that once accompanied a drunk chorus of Suma Mitha Mon in a room full of twelve exuberant college boys now lay quiet against the windowsill. In the aftermath of the unforeseeable disaster that had ripped our world apart, lakhs of people from all walks of life flocked the streets to pay their respects to the man who had bewitched their hearts with his artistry and selflessness. Unswayed by the whimses of the weather, they stood tanned to their colours and drenched to their skin solely to catch a glimpse of their king as he was laid down to rest.

Painting the legend of Zubeen in the mind of a stranger to my land, is not nearly as impossible as inviting the rush of sepia memories from 2012 that they never had. Memories that swoop you back to that damp day near Bokakhat where your parents went off on a duet to Xunjoni Nuxudhiba wavering off the cassette player of your old car. When the spirit of Bihu was palpable in the backseat as you and your brother could only rattle on about bathing cows and pithas and husori and husori and husori the entire way to your grandma’s. The distant ring of that day under the twilight balcony where you watched your lovesick cousin pour out a glass of heartbreak with Tumi Suwa Jetia or one of those innumerable times in the confines of your study when Maya veered you away from the torment of academic nuisance into a gentle lull some thousand leagues away from home. Zubeen has been omnipresent in all seasons of life.

My memories seem synthetic when juxtaposed with the personal anecdotes of thousands of people who had the fortune to meet, work or live with him. People with a first-hand account of his charisma and benevolence. The only proper rockstar our country was blessed to behold, complete with his flamboyant stage antics and outfits that seemed to have landed from outer space. But for the rest of us who never did, his creations have tethered themselves to some deeply personal episodes of our lives. They embroider a nostalgia that constitutes the mosaic we are today. His story is not just marked with the wealth of music and nostalgia he left us with but also with what he truly achieved in a fierce, unforgiving industry. To have come from one of the more untended and misrepresented regions of the country in the early 90s, to stand on the ledge of tantalizing stardom following a series of album hits before breaking out into a bollywood phenomenon, all in the rough span of a decade, is not merely unprecedented but downright extraordinary. The thousands of songs he sang in dozens of languages created frenzy in a generation of cinema-goers, particularly in Assam and Bengal, whose indigenous industries were ushered into a golden-age. The genius was second to none.

Zubeen Garg is the paragon of how karma is your sole truth and purpose. He exhausted his life in creating the bountiful works of art we take pride in today. He spent his waking hours mastering, evolving and adapting his craft with a work ethic that bordered on mania and carved out a legendary career in the face of loss and adversities. He was someone who lived life on the edge with little regard for self-preservation. He danced with his tribulations and yet, he was a gift that kept on giving. He turned his back on the decadence of celebrityhood at the peak of his bollywood glam and returned to the culture that nourished him. He became the brazen voice of a people he committed his life to and gave back more than he ever received. There was simply no force in our world that could prevent him from taking a stance for what he believed in. Zubeen proved that when you have the fortitude to withstand the horrors of this universe and become the very fuel that fuels your core, there can be nothing standing in your path to greatness. And with time, wisdom and perseverance, you may finally sit under the tree your own worn hands planted with much toil and soak in the shade of nirvana.

On the 10th day of his absence, a majestic scene sprawled out before my eyes as I stepped out on the soil where he was cremated. A sea of cars gave way to an ocean of people who had gathered around the cloistered remains of his pyre. A misty field of incense sticks shrouded the ground where a hundred-odd men and women recited hymns in feverish devotion. My feet stayed rooted to the spot right next to my parents, overwhelmed by the glory of the departed. In that moment, for the first time in all my twenty years, I sensed a discernible presence of God. Just as he had showered his undying love to the masses, the masses had canonized him back. His cremation ground is now a shrine in the town of Sonapur, where tributes pour in from all around the world.

In the generations from now, people may not embody the love for him the same way we instilled it in ourselves but the mellow streams of Mayabini will continue to flow through every corner of this land. The music is a testament to the permanence of his existence and will be heard for as long as the blood of Assam flows in the blue planet.

জয় জুবিন দা। জয় আই অসম।