Zubeen Garg: God’s Own Child 

Never in my darkest moments did I imagine I would pen these words. Hours have dissolved into an endless void, yet my mind refuses to grasp this devastating reality.

Zubeen Garg has fallen silent forever.

What was Zubeen Garg to Assam? Was he merely a singer? A rockstar who set stages ablaze? An eccentric genius whose music defied convention? A cultural colossus? A filmmaker? The voice of an entire people? A narcissistic force of nature whose talent knew no boundaries?

Perhaps he was all of these, a kaleidoscope of contradictions that somehow formed a perfect whole. Undeniably, he was a musical virtuoso, the most towering cultural figure Assam has seen since Bharat Ratna Bhupen Hazarika. Even now, certain purists bristle at placing him in that hallowed pantheon alongside Hazarika himself.

But love, the torrential, overwhelming love he commanded, that was something no one in Assam's history has ever owned in such abundance. For three glorious decades, he reigned as Assam's most cherished son. Yes, God had blessed him with a voice that could move mountains and part rivers. But the greatest blessing bestowed upon him was something even more extraordinary: the fierce, unconditional, unwavering love of an entire land. The kind of devotion that defies logic, that must be seen to be believed. To say he could have gotten away with murder in Assam would barely scratch the surface of the truth.

What alchemy transformed this man into the beating heart of millions? They were not merely fans clustered around a celebrity. To them, he was family. To the weathered seventy-year-old grandfather reminiscing about better days, to the fifty-year-old bureaucrat trapped in governmental machinery, to the forty-year-old mother juggling impossible dreams, to the thirty-year-old revolutionary burning with political fire, to the fifteen-year-old schoolboy discovering his first heartbreak. To each of them, Zubeen belonged completely. He was their voice in joy, their solace in pain, their courage in despair. He was not just singing their favourite songs. He was singing them. 

But was it solely that voice that made him so profoundly loved? I deliberately say "loved" rather than “popular” as popularity is cheap currency in our modern world. But love, the kind that Zubeen commanded, that's rarer than diamonds.

So, what was it?

His voice alone, though divinely gifted, cannot explain this phenomenon. The world has known many gifted singers who never touched hearts the way he did.

The answer lies in Zubeen Garg, the human being. Raw, unfiltered, magnificently flawed. 

From his very first song, he broke the mould. He embodied everything traditional Assamese society had never seen in a musician—that untamed mane of hair, that delicious irreverence, those undeniable Western influences—yet, his songs pulsed with the very lifeblood of Assam's soil, carried the whispers of its rivers, breathed the essence of its air. He became the living manifestation of the rebel that dwells in every soul but remains shackled by societal expectations and personal fears. Through his music, he gave wings to suppressed aspirations, kindled hope in darkened hearts, and taught an entire generation how to dream, grieve, and believe again.

Beneath his rebellious exterior lived an eternal child, vulnerable and pure. He could infuriate with an outrageous remark, and, melt hearts a moment later with a smile that disarmed everything. He might be mangling English with that endearing accent of his, and seconds later, you'd find him knee-deep in flood waters, helping villagers in Assam's forgotten corners. 

Yet even this generosity doesn't fully explain the love.

It was the profound mysticism he embodied—that impossible fusion of childlike whimsy and soaring musical brilliance. In the collective consciousness, he became inseparable from his songs. Millions fell in love not just with his voice but with the soul they imagined behind it, the person who could feel such depths, who could articulate such longings. And he lived that truth. The crushing grief of losing his sister, the unbearable void left by his mother's departure, and countless other agonies he carried in silence.

This explains why that seemingly arrogant, irreverent giant would sometimes crumble into inconsolable tears. Only a handful saw these moments, but millions felt them reverberating through his music. They felt he deserved every ounce of their love. In return, they craved just a fleeting moment of his presence. 

And he gave himself to all. Always. Not as a distant star, but as a man of the streets. He belonged to the footpaths, the tea stalls, the roadside gatherings. No gatekeepers, no appointments. He was always there, for everyone.

That pain, that otherworldly mysticism, that radical accessibility transformed his devoted followers into the most forgiving audience on Earth. They embraced his flaws as sacred scars. He drank too much, behaved badly, kept crowds waiting for hours. Yet like unconditional lovers, they accepted him, completely, without reservation. He created unwatchable films that shattered Assamese box office records. He single-handedly resurrected Assamese cinema, drawing crowds back to theatres to watch films in their mother tongue.

Such was the power of Zubeen Garg.

I discovered this power firsthand a decade ago.

In 2013, a drunk Zubeen failed to turn up for an India Today event, despite promising me personally. I was furious. I felt betrayed. He was my friend, we even shared the same birthday. I lashed out publicly, called him the most despicable professional, even said I would have smashed his skull if I found him around.

And then came our birthday. He merely offered that sheepish, disarming smile, so uncharacteristic of his usual bravado. I was not angry anymore. But more than that, he had absorbed my harsh words without letting them poison his heart.

In that moment, I realised the big truth. He was God's own child, walking among us. That's why he was, is, and forever will be the most beloved soul to ever grace the soil of Assam.

And now God has taken back his favourite child from us.