By Manoranjana Gupta
He sang of fathers and first love, of rivers and rebellions. He sang of laughter and longing. He sang until his body broke. Zubeen Garg was Assam’s son, India’s bard, and the Brahmaputra’s eternal echo.
THE BOY WHO BECAME “LUIT KONTHO”
Born on November 18, 1972, in Tura, Meghalaya, and raised in Assam’s cultural crucible around Jorhat, Zubeen Borthakur grew into “Luit Kontho”—the voice of the mighty Brahmaputra. Long before Bollywood discovered him, Assam had already surrendered. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, he could coax rhythm from tabla, dotara, dhol, or guitar, his voice stretching from devotional quietude to rebellious roar.
As a boy, he once scribbled in a notebook: “Junak pora xopunore rong, bukur bhitoror xiha” — moonlight dreams, the warmth inside a heart. Those words would become his prophecy.
ASSAM, ALWAYS—EVEN WHEN MUMBAI CALLED
In 2006, India’s music world woke up to the cry of “Ya Ali” in Gangster. A nation played it on loop, Bollywood crowned a new star. But Zubeen never let the bright lights erase the fireflies of his home. He could have stayed in Mumbai, where comfort and care were easier, but he chose the cracked loudspeakers of Assam’s village fairs. “If Mumbai forgets me, let it. Assam never will,” he told friends.
And so he returned—again and again—to the red earth, to the Bihu stages, to the youth who screamed his name.
THE ASSAMESE SONGBOOK
Ask any Assamese household, and the names tumble out: “Mayabini Ratir Bukut,” “Tumi Mur,” “Hridoy,” and of course “Deuta.”
“Deuta, where are you?
Your shadow no longer guards me,
Yet I still walk, remembering your hand in mine.”
That one song, “Deuta,” became the anthem of every child who ever lost a father, and every father who never found the words “I love you.”
And then there was “Mayabini Ratir Bukut.” Zubeen called it his “fantasy song.” He declared: “Ei gaan tu mur fantasy hoy. Moy jetia morim, gutei Axom’r ei gaan tu gaabo lagibo.” — “This song is my fantasy. When I die, the whole of Assam must sing this song.”
When his mortal remains were brought home, thousands obeyed. In funeral processions, his people sang Mayabini through tears. In death, as in life, Zubeen had composed his own requiem.
THE MANY FACES OF HIS ART
Never content with playback fame, he wrote poems (Xabda Anubhuti, Zubeenor Podyo), composed albums, and directed films. His Echoes of Silence won a National Film Award. His Mission China (2017) was not just a film but a mass rally in theatres, its songs sung like slogans. Kanchanjangha (2019) showed that regional cinema could roar like Bollywood.
In his hands, art was not commerce—it was communion. Yet critics feel the crass commercialisation of music drained him, pressing him to perform even when unwell. Neglect, too, cannot be ruled out. He flew to Singapore for the North East Festival to promote culture, but when he collapsed during a scuba outing, there was no one to protect him. A man who lived to give Assam its pride was not given the care he deserved.
Thirty-eight thousand songs across forty languages. Devotional in the morning, protest anthem by noon, romantic ballad by dusk. And in concert? A carnival. He would switch from bansuri to harmonium, crack a joke mid-ghazal, laugh until the crowd laughed with him. He was a festival disguised as a man.
Flood relief concerts, scholarships, anti-corruption campaigns, anti-CAA platforms—Zubeen carried the burdens of his time as fiercely as his music. When COVID beds ran short, he opened his own home. His Kalaguru Artiste Foundation reached places the government forgot. He was artist, neighbour, warrior.
If the music made us swoon, the laughter made us stay. He could turn a greenroom into a kitchen, a tense silence into a family gathering. Assam did not just love his songs; it loved his mischievous grin, his irreverent humour, his zest for life.
A PERSONAL NOTE
In 2006, when I launched Radio Ooh La La—the Northeast’s first private FM station—I asked Zubeen to be our brand ambassador. He didn’t negotiate. He ran into the studio, recorded jingles in his own voice, danced through the checks, and stood beside us in Shillong, Agartala, Itanagar—as if the station were his child too.
And then there was the first-ever music talent hunt of the Northeast, Voice of Axom. Zubeen joined me on stage as a judge for the grand finale, and later to give away the awards. I still remember his words: “Mano, you’re doing great work for the young talent of Assam. They don’t get a chance on Zee or other national channels because they come from the remotest corners of the country. But you are giving them a stage.”
He thanked me for giving away flats, cars, and prizes to encourage children. His words meant the world to me, not because they praised, but because they revealed his heart: Zubeen wanted Assam’s children to dream beyond their geography. He wanted to lift them with him. That was Zubeen—the man who measured success by how many others could share it.
On September 19, 2025, he drowned during a scuba-diving outing in Singapore. A cruel irony: a man who gave us breathless music silenced beneath water.
When his body returned, Assam poured into the streets. Mourners stretched farther than the eye could see. Some called it the fourth-largest funeral gathering in the world. Whether or not statistics can measure grief, the truth is undeniable: Assam stopped breathing that day. Mothers wept as though they had lost their own son. Fathers bowed and whispered: “Deuta.”
Because in the end, every father of Assam now waits in the beyond, yearning for Zubeen to rise once more and sing. Every child carries his words like prayer beads.
“Deuta, I still hear you,
In the wind, in the river, in the night.
You are gone—
But your song remains.”
