Zubeen Garg’s eternal lessons for Assam and India

A PATCH of recently cleared land, flanked by high trees that cast a cooling shadow on milling crowds below, has become the latest pilgrimage site in Southasia. It stands off a busy national highway that carries travellers on journeys, long and short, to Upper Assam and other parts of India’s Northeast. Thousands of visitors every day walk over its red earth, damp from fresh showers. They light candles, earthen lamps (which they carry, along with a cotton wick and mustard oil, in small plastic packets) and aromatic agarbatti. Many carry the Assamese gamosa, a traditional cotton cloth richly embroidered in red thread with motifs of birds, plants and the xorai (pronounced “horai”) – a conical bell-metal receptacle where guests are traditionally served areca nut and betel leaf. They place these offerings at the site where an extraordinarily talented singer and musician was cremated recently. Some stand, others bow and fold their hands in silent respect; a number kneel and pray after lighting their lamps and incense sticks.

The sudden death by drowning in Singapore of Zubeen Garg, whose photos now dominate not just here in the Sonapur area but also in public and private spaces across Assam, triggered a tsunami of grief across this medium-sized Indian state of about 35 million. Keening wails of “Zubeen Da” – a traditional and affectionate reference, as if to an older brother – rose from vast crowds. Life ground to a halt for more than a week in places, and a sense of despondency prevailed across the towns and villages of Assam as people held street vigils by day and night, singing Garg’s songs and playing his music. Hundreds of thousands walked, cycled, drove and rode motorcycles following his body from Guwahati’s airport to the stadium where he lay in state, and then again to the cremation site some 25 kilometres from the state capital.