Assam Celebrated, Flooded, Fought and Mourned — But Never Replaced Him
Assam has completed one year without Zubeen Garg, but the state has not really learned how to live with his absence. The festivals returned, the microphones were switched on, the cinema halls opened their doors, political parties went to the people, floods once again tested the state and thousands of ordinary lives moved through another year. On the surface, everything continued as it always had. But beneath that routine was a strange cultural vacuum that became visible every time a familiar song played, every time a Bihu stage was announced, every time an Assamese film opened in a theatre or every time a crowd gathered for a social cause. Zubeen was no longer there, yet his presence seemed to follow almost every major cultural and social moment in Assam.
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His death on September 19, 2025, at the age of 52 did not simply remove a singer from the Assamese music industry. It removed a personality who had spent decades inserting himself into the emotional, cultural and sometimes political bloodstream of the state. The first year without him has therefore been less about forgetting and more about discovering just how much of Assam had quietly become accustomed to hearing, seeing and arguing with Zubeen Garg.
The scale of the mourning following his death was itself a warning that something much larger than a celebrity had disappeared. The crowds that followed his final journey were not behaving like an audience saying goodbye to an entertainer. They were behaving like a society saying goodbye to someone it believed belonged to it. That distinction matters because Zubeen's relationship with Assam was never restricted to the stage. He could be adored, criticised, questioned and even opposed, but he could rarely be ignored. He had spent decades moving between music, cinema, social causes, public debates and popular culture, and in the process had become almost impossible to separate from contemporary Assam itself. A year later, that connection remains visible. His songs continue to be played, his films continue to be discussed, his statements continue to be quoted and his name continues to appear in cultural and political conversations. Assam has moved forward, but Zubeen has not been left behind.
MUSIC: THE INDUSTRY CONTINUES, THE VOID REMAINS
The most obvious place to measure the impact of Zubeen's absence is music. Assam has never lacked singers, musicians or talented performers, but Zubeen's contribution was never simply about producing hit songs. He helped change the scale and ambition of Assamese popular music. He moved comfortably between folk, modern Assamese music, rock, romantic numbers, devotional compositions and film songs, while also singing in several other languages. More importantly, he made music feel contemporary without forcing Assamese identity into the background. For an entire generation, his songs were not occasional entertainment; they were part of everyday life. They travelled in buses and cars, played from tea stalls and shops, filled college festivals and Bihu stages and accompanied people working thousands of kilometres away from home. His voice became one of the easiest ways for an Assamese person to feel connected to Assam.
That is why the year after his death has been so revealing. The industry has continued producing music, but there has been no obvious successor to the cultural space Zubeen occupied. This is not a question of talent. Assam has talented young singers and musicians. The question is whether another artist can achieve the same extraordinary connection across generations, classes, communities and cultural preferences.
Zubeen's own understanding of music was deeply personal. “Music is my soul, and Assam is my heartbeat,” he once said, and the statement now sounds less like a celebrity quote and more like a description of the relationship that eventually developed between the artist and his audience. The music survived his death because recordings do not die with their singers. But the experience of waiting for Zubeen to sing something new, watching him walk onto a stage or hearing him suddenly take a familiar song in an unexpected direction is gone permanently.
This is also where the responsibility of the Assamese music industry becomes greater. If Zubeen's legacy is reduced to tribute concerts, memorial songs and endless attempts to recreate his sound, then the industry will have misunderstood him. Zubeen was successful precisely because he refused to remain predictable. He experimented, challenged conventions and repeatedly moved into unfamiliar territory. The strongest tribute to that legacy would therefore not be another imitation of Zubeen but a music industry confident enough to allow the next generation to be original, rebellious and experimental. One year after his death, that is the unfinished challenge.
BIHU: THE FESTIVAL THAT COULD NOT SIMPLY MOVE ON
If music exposed the scale of his influence, Bihu exposed the emotional consequences of his absence. For years, Zubeen and Rongali Bihu became almost inseparable in the public imagination. His performances were not simply another item on a festival programme; for thousands of people, seeing Zubeen perform during Bihu had become part of the festival itself. His songs brought together the traditional and the contemporary in a way that allowed younger audiences to claim Bihu as their own without feeling that tradition belonged to an older generation. When the first Rongali Bihu arrived after his death, Assam discovered that a festival can continue perfectly well on paper and still feel fundamentally different.
The dhols were there, the pepas were there, the stages were there and the crowds returned, but the expectation of Zubeen appearing on stage had disappeared. Some Bihu committees reduced programmes and some chose to dedicate portions of their celebrations to remembering him. His songs were heard repeatedly, but every performance carried an uncomfortable reminder: the person who had made those songs part of Assam's celebration would never sing them there again. That is why Bihu without Zubeen was not simply Bihu without one performer. It was the first major test of whether Assam could separate a festival from an artist who had become embedded in its modern identity.
The answer was complicated. Bihu continued, because Assam cannot stop celebrating its most important festival. But Zubeen remained present precisely through his absence. His songs were played because people wanted to hear him, his photographs appeared because people wanted to remember him and tributes were organised because people were not ready to treat his death as an ordinary passing. The festival moved forward, but the memory did not.
CINEMA: THE LAST ZUBEEN FILM AND THE BUSINESS OF MEMORY
Assamese cinema experienced the same contradiction. Zubeen was not merely a playback singer who occasionally appeared on screen. He was an actor, composer, director and filmmaker who became an important part of the modern Assamese film industry. His presence helped bring popular audiences back to Assamese cinema at various points, and his ability to combine commercial entertainment with Assamese settings and themes gave him a reach beyond conventional film audiences.
His final major film, Roi Roi Binale, therefore arrived under circumstances that no filmmaker could have planned. What might ordinarily have been a film release became a farewell. Audiences entered theatres knowing that they were watching Zubeen in a new film for the last time. The emotional weight was unavoidable. Director Rajesh Bhuyan said, “This film is not ours, it’s Assam’s,” a statement that reflected the unusual ownership audiences felt towards the project. The film's release demonstrated the extraordinary power of Zubeen's name, but it also raised a difficult question for Assamese cinema: what happens when the person who could draw audiences through sheer emotional connection is no longer available?
That question cannot be answered through nostalgia. If Assamese cinema genuinely wants to honour Zubeen, it has to build an ecosystem in which films can succeed without depending on one superstar. More screens, stronger distribution, better financing, professional production systems and audiences willing to support Assamese films regardless of who is starring in them will matter far more than another memorial event. Zubeen's final film can remain a farewell, but it should not become the final high point of an industry that is supposed to continue evolving.
DURGA PUJA: WHEN ZUBEEN'S VOICE ENTERED ANOTHER KIND OF MOURNING
The first Durga Puja after his death demonstrated another dimension of his cultural reach. Puja brought its usual lights, crowds, devotional music and immersion processions, yet Zubeen's songs appeared in the celebrations and became part of the mourning surrounding the festival. His music being played during public celebrations may appear insignificant by itself, but it reflected something much larger. Zubeen had moved beyond the boundaries of the entertainment industry long before his death. His voice had become part of the public soundscape of Assam.
That is why people did not need a special occasion to remember him. His songs could appear at a Puja pandal, during an immersion procession, at a wedding, in a roadside shop or inside someone's car, and each time the experience had changed after September 19. A song that was once simply enjoyable could suddenly become a memory of the person who sang it. That is the strange power of popular culture: artists disappear, but their voices continue entering people's lives without permission.
SOCIAL ZUBEEN: THE CELEBRITY WHO REFUSED TO STAY INSIDE THE STAGE
Perhaps the most important part of Zubeen's legacy is also the part that is easiest to overlook. He was not satisfied with being an entertainer. He repeatedly entered public debates, supported social causes and spoke on issues that could have been avoided by someone interested only in protecting a celebrity image. He participated in protests, criticised decisions he disagreed with and used his popularity to speak on matters affecting Assam.
After the Dhemaji blast in 2004, he responded with Olop Xanti Diya, a song born from tragedy and anger. Years later, during the anti-CAA movement, he again became a public voice. “I will continue protesting against CAA in my own ways. On stage or on social media — wherever, however I can,” he said. He also appealed for restraint amid the violence surrounding the protests, saying, “No more deaths should be allowed to happen due to protests.”
Those statements are important not because every Assamese agreed with everything Zubeen said, but because they demonstrate the unusual role he played. He did not believe that celebrity required silence. He accepted that speaking publicly could attract criticism. He could be emotional, confrontational and unpredictable, but that unpredictability itself made his public interventions matter. In a society where public figures frequently calculate every sentence, Zubeen often appeared unwilling to do so. One year after his death, that voice is missing from Assam's social conversations. There are plenty of public figures willing to speak, but there is a difference between making a statement and possessing the cultural credibility to make an entire generation stop and listen. Zubeen had accumulated that credibility over decades.
FLOODS: ASSAM'S OLD DISASTER, A DIFFERENT KIND OF ABSENCE
Then came the floods, another recurring disaster that refuses to disappear from Assam's calendar. Villages went underwater, families were displaced, homes were damaged and communities once again depended on relief and rescue. The tragedy of Assam's floods is that they are simultaneously treated as extraordinary disasters and routine events. Every year brings the same cycle of water, suffering, relief camps, political visits and promises.
Zubeen's absence was felt here too, not because he could have solved Assam's flood problem, but because his public life had often been associated with ordinary people and humanitarian causes. In the year after his death, artists and volunteers continued participating in relief activities, carrying forward a culture of public engagement that Zubeen had come to represent. His wife, Garima Saikia Garg, joined members of the Assamese film fraternity in a flood-relief initiative and said, “Artists have always shared a close bond with the people.” That sentence captures a responsibility that has become more important after Zubeen's death.
The easiest way to remember a socially conscious artist is through memorial programmes. The harder way is to continue standing beside people when the cameras disappear. If Zubeen's social legacy means anything, it must exist beyond September 19 and beyond songs played at memorial events.
POLITICS: EVERYONE REMEMBERS THE ZUBEEN THEY NEED
Nowhere has Zubeen's posthumous influence become more complicated than in politics. His songs, statements and public image have inevitably become part of political conversations because he was deeply connected to questions of Assamese identity, citizenship, culture and society. Political parties have referred to his legacy, his songs have appeared in political contexts and different groups have attempted to interpret what he represented.
But there is a problem with trying to politically own Zubeen Garg: the real Zubeen was never that simple. He could speak fiercely about Assamese identity while singing in multiple languages. He could participate in political protests while maintaining his independence from political organisations. He could criticise governments without becoming the property of the opposition. He could express strong opinions on one issue and resist being reduced to a political ideology on another.
His famous line from Kanchanjungha — “Mur kunu jati nai, mur kunu dharma nai… moi mukto” — has been repeatedly invoked because it captures one side of his personality: an insistence on freedom beyond rigid categories. But reducing him to that one line would be as inaccurate as reducing him to Assamese nationalism. Zubeen contained contradictions, and those contradictions were part of his appeal. That is why his political legacy should be examined carefully rather than appropriated casually. His words belong to the public record; his music belongs to the people who listen to it. But his legacy cannot honestly be turned into a political property simply because his name carries emotional influence.
THE YOUNG: THE HARDEST LEGACY TO PASS ON
Perhaps the biggest test now lies with Assam's younger generation. A generation that grew up listening to Zubeen is now entering music, cinema, journalism, activism, business and politics without him being physically present. They know his songs, his films and his controversies, but they will never experience the excitement of waiting for the next Zubeen album or watching him unexpectedly appear somewhere and take over the moment.
That changes the nature of his legacy. Zubeen can no longer be a contemporary influence in the traditional sense. He has become history while remaining emotionally present. The danger is that history can become comfortable. A rebellious artist can be safely celebrated after death because the dead cannot challenge the people celebrating them. His difficult statements can be forgotten, his controversies softened and his contradictions erased. The Zubeen who remains only on posters, memorial stages and anniversary programmes would be far easier to handle than the Zubeen who once questioned people in power, irritated the establishment, broke conventions and refused to behave according to expectations.
If Assam truly wants to preserve his legacy, it must preserve the uncomfortable parts too.
ONE YEAR LATER, ASSAM STILL HAS NOT REPLACED HIM
A year has passed since Zubeen Garg died, and Assam has demonstrated that it can function without him. That was never really in doubt. Festivals cannot stop, industries cannot stop, politics cannot stop and ordinary people cannot stop living because one extraordinary individual is gone. But functioning is not the same as replacing.
The music industry continues, but his voice is absent. Bihu continues, but one of its defining performers is gone. Assamese cinema continues, but the man who could turn a film into a cultural event is no longer there. Durga Puja continues, but his songs now carry a different emotional weight. Political battles continue, but one of the state's most recognisable independent cultural voices is missing from the conversation.
Floods continue, and so does the need for the kind of public solidarity that he repeatedly demonstrated.
That is what the first year without Zubeen has really revealed. Assam did not lose only the man who sang Mayabini. It lost an artist who had managed to occupy several different spaces at once — musician, actor, filmmaker, social voice, cultural symbol and, above all, a person ordinary people felt belonged to them. Perhaps that is why his absence has been so difficult to normalise.
Zubeen once said of Mayabini, “When I die, this is the song that will play.” It eventually did. His own voice accompanied the final journey, turning a song into a farewell and a farewell into collective memory.
But the real legacy of Zubeen Garg will not be decided by how loudly Assam sings Mayabini every September 19. It will be decided by what Assam does with everything that came before the song — the music, the courage, the experimentation, the social engagement, the cultural confidence and the refusal to remain silent when silence was easier.