The State of Assam has suffered a great loss today. One of their greatest cultural icons has tragically passed away after a freak accident. Zubeen Garg died on Friday after an accident while scuba-diving in Singapore. The details of the accident aren’t known yet but it doesn’t matter right now, likely it never will.
His death has unleashed an outburst of love and adoration from his fans and other luminaries on social media. PM Narendra Modi and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma have both offered condolences over his demise. His colleagues and friends in the music industry have also expressed their sorrow.
Most people in India, especially those from the North Eastern states and West Bengal are already well aware of his accomplishments in the music industry. Others, no doubt, are hearing about them now and will find out more in the days to come. So, here, I will not talk about Zubeen Garg the musician. Here, I will talk about Zubeen Garg, the man.
The Scars That Never Heal
As any fan of his music will tell you, Zubeen Garg, or Zubeen Da as fans fondly call him, was far from perfect. He had his demons that he fought against every single day. Perhaps the greatest compliment that one can pay him is that in the end, it’s not his demons that defined who he was. It is the fact that he overcame all of them to etch his name across the firmament of North East India’s cultural tapestry that would define his legacy.
Even his demons that I speak of, it was by and large not his fault. It will be far too harsh to blame him for the manner in which he tried to cope with the tragedy that befell him in 2002. He and his sister, Jongki Borthakur, were on their way to perform on stage when his sister’s car met with a tragic accident. His sister did not survive. She was only 18 at the time. Zubeen Da only survived because he had moved to a different car only a few minutes before the accident.
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The elder brother never recovered from the Survivor’s Guilt. It is well known in North East India that he fell into the grips of alcoholism to cope with the loss of his sister. Even more than 20 years later, he would break down on stage in tears while performing one of his beloved sister’s songs.
Despite the tragedy, Zubeen Garg would go on to have a career in music that would comfortably secure him the title of the greatest Assamese musician after the great Bhupen Hazarika. If there’s anything one can learn from Zubeen Da, it’s that some scars never heal. But it’s up to us to decide whether we will let them define who we are.
Zubeen Garg: The Man Who Transcended Linguistic Barriers
Zubeen Garg was an Assamese cultural icon. But that is not the only state where his fans come from. Zubeen Garg has a massive fan following across all North Eastern States and West Bengal. After his hit songs in Bollywood, he found a national audience too.
He found his greatest audience among the Assamese and the Bengali peoples. Our communities have often been at odds with each other over language issues. The relations between the our peoples have improved massively over the years. But Zubeen Da managed to unite both communities through his music at a time when relations were not as great.
When his song ‘Ya Ali’ from the movie Gangster became a blockbuster hit across India, he gave millions of people from North East India something to be proud of. I was one of them. We were proud because he was one of us. It was 2006 and those days, North East India did not register much in the national imagination as it does today. He made us proud. He was one of us.
Zubeen Da would not limit himself to only Assamese, Bangla or Hindi languages. He went on to sing in as many as 40 languages and dialects. And he found fans who adore him wherever he went.
The Star That He Was
In days to come, no doubt, there will be people who push their own petty toxic agendas in his name. Reject them. Because his music is two sweet a nectar to be defiled by toxicity. His greatest legacy will always be the fact that he proved through his actions that it is possible to become a cultural icon without shedding your roots.
Zubeen Garg demonstrated that it is possible to love and cherish your mother-tongue without developing negative sentiments about others. He was an Assamese cultural icon through and through. Yet that did not prevent fans from India and even across the world from loving him. Indeed, his love for Assam and its culture was not compromised through his foray into Bangla or Hindi or any other language.
Assam is the mother that bore this great son. But she did not limit him to herself. Instead, she gave him up so that all of India could love and cherish him. And through her son, more people came to love her and her people. That is true of Zubeen Garg. And it can be true for all of us, regardless of where we come from.
