Zubeen Garg 18 November 1972 - 19 September 2025

 The news of Zubeen Garg’s sudden passing in Singapore on 19 September 2025 has struck a deep chord across Assam, and far beyond it. His exit feels like the dimming of a light that always promised more.

What endures most strongly is the scale of his contribution—the soundscape he built from folk traditions, modern song, and popular cinema, carrying Assamese culture into the national imagination. Born Jibon Borthakur in Tura, Meghalaya, and raised in Assam, his first lessons came from the voices around him: his mother’s singing, the cadences of Bihu, the devotional strains of Borgeet. Out of these influences grew a restless artist who refused to be confined by one form or language.

By the early 1990s, he was already a fixture in Assam’s recording scene, with Anamika (1992) marking the start of a career that stretched over three decades. He gave Assam albums like Xopunor Xur, Junaki Mon, and Maya, alongside Bihu recordings that spoke directly to his people. His national breakthrough came with “Ya Ali” from Gangster (2006), yet even as Bollywood embraced him, he continued to return to Assamese and Bengali songs, refusing to abandon the languages that defined him.

Across more than thirty years, Zubeen sang in nearly 40 languages and dialects, composing, acting, directing, and producing with an energy that seemed inexhaustible. He made Assamese identity legible to the wider world, reshaping folk traditions and threading them into contemporary forms. His voice became shorthand for belonging, for struggle, for joy.

Which is why, in the wake of his death, Assam has responded not only with grief but with collective remembrance. His funeral was marked by full state honours, with tens of thousands lining the streets and chanting his songs. The government has announced memorials in Sonapur and Jorhat, preservation plans for his childhood home, and proposals to rename landmarks in his memory. Youth groups are planning statues and district-wide remembrance events, while Puja committees, musicians, and ordinary citizens have woven tributes into their own rituals of song and gathering.

Anamika
Anamika (1992)

Zubeen’s debut album opener is still a calling card: confessional, homegrown pop that introduced his husky timbre and Assamese lyricism to cassette-era listeners. “Anamika” set the tone for a career balancing intimate songwriting with mass appeal, and it’s a perfect first stop for new listeners discovering his roots.

Hiya Dohe
Anamika (1992)

A tender ballad from the same debut album, “Hiya Dohe” shows how naturally he could phrase Assamese emotion within pop structures. It feels like a living-room recording that somehow fills a field evidence of how his voice alone could make small-scale music feel cinematic.

Dure Dure
Maya (1994)

From his landmark album Maya, “Dure Dure” is classic 90s Assamese pop gentle chord changes, an earworm refrain, and lyrics about distance and longing. It’s the sound of Zubeen building a modern repertoire from regional textures, long before national fame arrived.

Maya Mathu Maya
Maya (1994)

The title track is a fan perennial: lilting, hymn-like phrases over a mellow groove. You hear the songwriter-producer in command of his palette part folk cadence, part soft rock laying down a template he’d revisit for decades.

Jajabor Hoi
1993

“Jajabor” (wanderer) captures his freewheeling persona a restless melody about movement and identity that became lore in Assam. It’s a gateway into his non-film catalogue and the way he made “regional pop” feel universal.

Buku Duru Duru
Joubone Amoni Kore (1998)

Arguably his Assamese playback breakthrough, this heartbeat-soaring number from the film Joubone Amoni Kore put his cinematic voice on the map. The youthful rush in the hook became a generational memory for late-90s Assam.

Tumi Ei Dilahi (Tumiei Dilahi Mithakoi)
Bukur Majot Jole (1999)

A duet with Mahalakshmi Iyer, this song threads city-pop shimmer through riverine Assamese imagery. It’s an early example of Zubeen’s collaborative ease with singers from other industries, expanding the sonic vocabulary of Assamese film music.

Moloyar Dupakhit
Hiya Diya Niya (2000)

From the blockbuster that reenergised Assamese cinema, this romantic track is remembered for its airy tune and unhurried charm. It cemented Zubeen as the voice of youthful love stories on screen at the turn of the millennium.

Lahe Lahe
Nayak (2001)

A soft-breeze ballad that became a campus staple, “Lahe Lahe” later travelled into Bengali as “Shure Shure Gaan Holo,” underscoring his cross-language pull. It’s a masterclass in restraint melody doing the heavy lifting, voice carrying the mood.

Mayabini Ratir Bukut
Daag (2001)

One of his most cherished Assamese songs, “Mayabini” is elegiac, intimate, and instantly singable. After his passing, the track resurfaced statewide as collective remembrance proof that some melodies become rituals of belonging.

At Zubeen Garg’s funeral in Guwahati, his wish was honoured when mourners broke into “Mayabini Ratir Bukut,” the haunting classic from Daag (2001).

The song, long cherished by fans, became the collective anthem of his farewell. Tens of thousands joined in, turning grief into chorus proof of how deeply his music was woven into Assam’s cultural memory.

Ui Guthibo Jaanene
Kanyadaan (2002)

A bright, guitar-led tune that later found a Bengali avatar as “Shure Shure Gaan Holo,” this song maps how Zubeen’s compositions and performances hopped cultures with ease. It’s playful yet polished, and built for endless replays.

O Bondhu Re (Tor Khushi Te)
Premi (2004)

His Bengali catalogue is rich, and this plaintive romantic ballad from Premi shows why. Zubeen’s phrasing softens the edges of grief and hope, making the song feel both filmi and folk-adjacent a tone Bengali audiences embraced.

Piriti Kathaler Antha
Shudhu Tumi (2004)

A jaunty duet that reimagines an Assamese melodic sensibility for Kolkata’s commercial cinema, “Piriti Kathaler Antha” underlines his adaptability. It’s light on its feet, proof that Zubeen could slip into another industry’s idiom without losing himself.

Ya Ali
Gangster (2006)

The nationwide breakout. A Sufi-pop burner delivered with fervor, “Ya Ali” made Zubeen a household name beyond the Northeast. Its devotional intensity and clubby pulse captured mid-2000s Bollywood at full tilt and his voice sits at the heart of it.

Assam accorded Zubeen Garg one of its highest tributes: his cremation was held with full state honours, including a 21-gun salute by Assam Police personnel.

The salute underscored his status as a cultural icon whose music bound communities. Thousands gathered fans, state leaders, artists watching as the honour marked not just an end, but a collective farewell.

Zubeen Garg’s funeral in Guwahati drew a record-breaking crowd, reportedly the world’s fourth-largest, earning a spot in the Limca Book of Records.

Thousands queued through the night for a final glimpse, while lakhs across Assam gathered in farewell. Only three others have seen funerals of comparable scale Michael Jackson, Pope Francis, and Queen Elizabeth II. Garg passed away last week in Singapore.

The Assam government has moved quickly to preserve Zubeen Garg’s legacy. Plans include setting up permanent memorials at Sonapur, where he was cremated, and Jorhat, his hometown.

Officials have also proposed preserving his childhood home as a cultural landmark. Together, these initiatives aim to honour not just the artist, but the collective identity his music gave Assam.