Zubeen Garg: A Loving Tribute!

 

The fair bright-faced boy with curly black hair, the sweet smile that never ceases to linger on his face and his eyes, his carefree ways and a great sense of humour, his brutal honesty and equally brutally outspoken, and yet the simplicity of his magnetic personality is overwhelming. These are the images that come to my mind whenever I think of him or his songs; even more now when his sudden untimely tragic accidental demise has shattered millions and millions across Assam, across India and across the world. These images are of the late 90s and early 2000s (unfortunately, I don’t have personal photographs as personal cameras or mobiles were conspicuously absent those days.). He is Zubeen Garg. He has been  a living legend of Assam, second only to Bhupen Hazarika, till destiny took him away just when the people of Assam have started celebrating the birth centenary of Sudhakantha Bhupen Hazarika. Zubeen, possibly the greatest singer-artiste ever produced in Assam, in terms of his mind-blowing following—covering/influencing/entertaining almost all of Gen X, Gen Y or the Millennials, Gen Z and even the Gen Alpha. And this is not just for his singing, but more for his sterling qualities that make him a dear friend of all the classes of Assam.

The crowds paying their last tributes all over Assam have been unprecedented with millions of them refusing to leave the streets or the grounds where his mortal remains are kept or awaited earlier for public darshan. Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, initially announced a three-day state mourning from 20-22^nd September, 2025, but had to extend it to 23^rd bowing to the incredible surge of admirers. The state funeral thus is going to be held tomorrow, the 23^rd September, in the outskirts of the city of Guwahati—a decision made on the request of Zubeen’s devastated wife Garima Saikia Garg and his family while there have been demands for being given the same honour from other cities.  His millions of devout admirers are also very angry because of some element of suspicion over his accidental death in Singapore on 19^th September, 2025, and amid mourning their hearts are crying out for the truth and the action that has to follow.

After the huge successes of his first few albums of Assamese songs, folk mixed with modern music for the first time, he landed in Mumbai around 1995 trying to find a place in Bollywood. We too came to know him that time. There was a relative’s son who was an inseparable childhood friend from the Jorhat years of Zubeen, Gautam Chakravarty, and who came to Mumbai for a course in sound recording, and through him we came to acquaint ourselves personally with Zubeen. He brought Zubeen once to our home in Mumbai for lunch and then onward we continued to meet him in the studios and in the functions organized by the Assam Association, Mumbai during various festivals where he sang invariably. The boy with the golden voice soon found a footing in Bollywood music and started playback singing in various movies.

His song Ya Ali for the movie Gangster (2006) made him very famous earning him a nomination in the Filmfare Awards-2007. Thanks to his commitment to his home state and his own people, he couldn’t fully concentrate on Bollywood, and therefore, apart from the occasional Hindi and Bangla film songs he worked mostly for Assam—composing-writing-singing for albums and Assamese films, as music director for many of these films and also acting in a few of them, not to speak of his immensely popular performances on the Bihu stages all over the state. Very soon Zubeen had set up his own recording studios in Mumbai and Guwahati. As is natural for a legendary singer, awards and nominations kept coming his way. He won his first National Award in 2005, Rajat Kamal for Best Music Director from Assam for the movie Dinabandhu, and in 2007 he received another National Award for Best Music from the then President of India, Pratibha Patil, for the non-fiction film Echoes of Silence.

I rue the fact that for the last decade or so we haven’t had any personal contact with him; however, we always got the news about him, heard from his friends known to us and from the grapevine. Like most of superstars and legends, controversies surrounded him all the years—usually for his unconventional straightforward ways and words, and his outbursts in public places and on the music stages. Perhaps a family tragedy affected him beyond repair. His younger sister, Jonkey Borthakur, who had been emerging as a singer as well as a movie actor died in a road accident in Assam in 2002, at the tender age of 18. The trauma of losing a sibling is always unbearable—the trauma often leaving an inerasable impact on the other siblings, particularly the elder ones. Zubeen tried his best to relieve his trauma through music—releasing an album in her name, but perhaps the pain never left him, making him unpredictable, given to intoxication and created health issues in the recent years.

Zubeen Garg was totally apolitical—raising his voice against anything he found wrong with any political party or ruling parties. He wholeheartedly participated in the anti-CAA movement in Assam during 2021-22, apart from other protests where he took to the streets with his music. He is also known for his charity, never disappointing anybody in need. It’s said by his fans that nobody ever left his house in Assam empty handed. He also participated in setting up a supermarket where products were directly procured from the farmers and villagers.

Zubeen Garg was born and named after the legend Zubin Mehta to parents Mohini Mohan Borthakur and Ily Borthakur—his father a poet and lyricist apart from his civil service career and his mother also a singer who was Zubeen’s first guru. He changed his family surname ‘Borthakur’ to his gotra ‘Garg', perhaps to assume an Indian identity.  His father, around 85 years of age now, survives him along with Zubeen's youngest sister and wife Garima Garg. Today, we join the prayers of his family, friends and the millions of his admirers. May God bless his noble soul and rest him in eternal bliss. And his music is going to flow on unabated…more than 38 thousand songs in more than 40 languages and dialects keeping us tuned for ages to come. Salute the great artiste!

Ashish Warang: A Shocking Untimely Loss!

It's really heartbreaking that a powerful character actor should pass away at the age of just 55 while in prime as far the career goes or the huge promise of a lot more to come. Ashish Warang, an actor of Bollywood and the Marathi film industry, had suddenly passed away on Friday, the 5th of September, 2025. There was a total lack of clarity about his demise initially; only today his friends have come out with a statement that he had not been well for some time. First he had jaundice and although he'd recovered from the disease more complications followed in the next few months, finally leading to a cardiac arrest that proved fatal for the sturdy actor. 

Ashish Warang acted with most of the leading Bollywood stars in supporting roles--almost always as a cop. I immensely liked his performances; however, those were very brief roles which didn't linger on in my mind enough to enable me to associate his name with the roles. His face has been very familiar to me, but unfortunately, not his name. While I must take the blame for not doing enough research about him the media must also share the same for not highlighting performances of so many brilliant character artistes doing mostly cameos that still leave a palpable impact in the films concerned and always hyping only the superstars. 

He also did a few hilarious ads for a PhonePe campaign with the megastars Aamir Khan and Alia Bhatt about five years back, again as a cop. In fact, I loved those ads even more than the cameos Ashish played in quite a few Bollywood hits with Ajay Devgn Akshay Kumar, Rani Mukherjee, Ranveer Singh and more. I used to remember those ads often, and yet not the name of the face I so loved. This increases my pain for the sudden void at this moment. We mourn his demise and pray to God to rest his soul in eternal bliss. We share the grief with his family, friends and kin. Om Shanti!