In the heart of Assam, where the Brahmaputra swells with monsoon rage and villages disappear under muddy water year after year, a voice once rose that felt like it belonged to every silent soul. That voice was Zubeen Garg’s.
Whenever one thinks of writing about Zubeen Garg, the first question that comes to mind is a very simple yet unsettling one: who is Zubeen Garg really? Is he just a singer? Is he a socialist? Is he a nature lover, a rebel, a thinker, or something else entirely? People have given him many labels over the years, and perhaps all of them are true in some way. But when trying to understand him, one realizes that none of these labels fully contain him.
For the listener, Zubeen Da is not a definition. He is a feeling.
Everything seems to cease when people talk about Zubeen Garg. Time slows down, the usual noise fades, and what remains is a voice-raw, stubborn, wounded, and yet impossibly alive. When thinking of him now, one doesn’t just think of a singer. One thinks of someone who walked beside the people through curfews, through the annual floods that swallow homes, through protests where hope felt fragile, through heartbreaks that felt too heavy to carry alone, and through those long, silent nights when no one else seemed to understand.
He wasn’t distant, background music on the radio; he was closer. His songs didn’t come from polished studios that smelled of comfort. They came from streets that carried dust, sweat, blood, and all the unanswered questions we had learned to swallow quietly. When he sang, it felt like someone had finally dared to say aloud what we were trained to keep inside.
One can see how his music reaches places mainstream stories rarely touch: villages without proper roads, homes without steady electricity, and hearts without representation. In those corners, Zubeen wasn’t a celebrity. He was familiar.
There were moments when his songs became protest without slogans. No banners, no rehearsed chants - just pain set to melody. In those moments, Zubeen didn’t ask people to agree. He asked them to feel. And once one feels deeply enough, staying neutral becomes impossible.
Take “Endhar Hobo Nuwaru” from his early album Asha. On the surface, it’s a love song filled with longing. But listen closer, and it becomes something far bigger.
“Endhar hobo nuwaru
Mosi dibo nukhuju
Pakhi mela otitok
Kidore pahoru...”
His voice cracks here with a kind of desperate tenderness. The “darkness” isn’t only romantic absence. It’s the emptiness that settles when hope is repeatedly taken away-the darkness of watching land flood year after year, of seeing dreams drown in unemployment, of feeling one's voice doesn’t matter in the bigger picture. For so many, especially in those quiet, hopeless nights, this song became a battle cry. It was about refusing to let the darkness win, about gritting one's teeth and holding on. Zubeen gave that internal fight a melody so raw it felt like he was singing right into people's chests.
Then there are songs like “Mrityu Etiya Xohoj” from the album Mukti. This one cuts even deeper. It came out in a time when Assam was bleeding from violence, uncertainty, and endless conflict. The lyrics are haunting, almost unbearable in their honesty:
“Mukuti aaji dekhu dixohara hoi roi
Dixe dixe sole mathu mrityur joi…
Mrityu etiya xohoj
Mrityu etiya usob
Mrityu jodi xilpo hoi
Mrityu kidore xulobh…”
Zubeen takes the idea of death, something usually feared or mourned, and turns it into something disturbingly ordinary. “Death is easy now,” he sings, and one can hear the weariness, the numbness that comes when loss happens too often. He questions how violence and mortality have become normalized, almost celebrated or trivialized in a society torn apart. The line “Mrityu etiya usob” (Death is a festival now) is chilling; it captures the way tragedy can become routine, something people almost get used to.
For many listeners, this song has always been the heaviest. It doesn’t offer cheap hope. It sits with the despair first and lets it breathe. And in that space, something shifts; one realizes the unheard aren’t just asking to be heard; they’re asking to be allowed to live without death feeling so damn easy.
Zubeen understood that the “unheard” aren’t statistics. They’re the daily labourer, the mother in Majuli watching her home sink, and the young Bodo or Mising person feeling their culture slip away. He gave them dignity by turning their struggles into poetry and melody.
What set Zubeen apart was his consistency. He didn’t do social work for cameras. He spoke out against environmental destruction when trees in Guwahati were threatened. He stood with flood victims quietly, year after year. Zubeen wasn’t just singing about Assam; he was singing as Assam. Its anger, exhaustion, and stubborn hope. He was the sound that refused to fade, even when the world pretended not to hear. And maybe that’s why everything seems to cease when we talk about him. In that pause, we are forced to listen-not just to him, but to ourselves, to the unheard parts we have carried for so long.
As long as the Brahmaputra flows and the hills stand, that voice will keep echoing inside.
“Joi Zubeen Da.”
The light hasn’t gone out. The darkness doesn’t feel quite so complete anymore.
Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political, and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC-accredited, UGC-recognised Commerce and Arts College. The editorial team includes Tenipumei Phom, Asst. Professor Dept. of English, Limajungla Walling, Asst. Professor Dept. of Linguistics, and Munkiri Taro, Multimedia Executive. For feedback or comments, please email: dot@tetsocollege.org
