A family twice broken: From Jonkey to Zubeen, the Borthakurs silenced by tragedy

Life’s tragedies sometimes arrive like unfinished songs, replaying their sorrow decades apart. The sudden death of Zubeen Garg in Singapore has reopened one of the deepest wounds of Assam’s cultural memory—the loss of his sister, Jonkey Borthakur, in a road accident 23 years ago.

In January 2002, an 18-year-old Jonkey, vibrant with promise, was snatched away in a horrific car crash on a rain-slicked highway near Tezpur. She was just stepping into the limelight, a budding actress and singer who had already left her mark in Assamese television and the film Tumi Mor Mathu Mor. On that fateful night, Zubeen was meant to be in the same car. By a twist of fate, he had shifted into another vehicle only minutes earlier. His sister never came back. He was left to carry the unbearable weight of survivor’s guilt and grief that forever altered his life.

Jonkey was not just a sister to Zubeen; she was his shadow, his duet partner, his co-dreamer. Her sudden absence left him broken, but also gave birth to some of his most poignant work. Just months later, Zubeen released Xixhu (Sishu), an album soaked in pain, where every note carried the echo of his loss. The songs became both his cry for his sister and a balm for countless fans who found their own grief mirrored in his voice.

Now, in a cruel symmetry of fate, tragedy has struck again. Zubeen, the voice of a generation, the man who gave India “Ya Ali” and who led the streets of Assam in protest songs against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, has himself been silenced—this time not by a truck on a highway, but by the unforgiving sea.

Two siblings, born into a family of art and melody, are now bound by parallel tragedies. Jonkey’s life ended before it could truly begin; Zubeen’s ended after he had given the world his soul through music, but still with much left to say.

As Assam mourns today, the grief feels doubled—an old wound torn open. The Borthakur family, once a house of melodies, has now been visited twice by unspeakable loss. For fans, the pain is unbearable: Zubeen had carried Jonkey’s memory in every note he sang, and now, he too is gone.

What began as a family’s tragedy has become Assam’s own—the silencing of voices that once promised endless music, but were claimed instead by fate’s cruellest hand.