One of the most influential singers in Assam, Zubeen Garg passed away at the age of 52 while scuba diving in Singapore on Friday. He was set to perform at the North East India festival tomorrow, and his last Instagram post informed fans about his upcoming event on Saturday, September 20. According to a Hindustan Times report, the singer died of a heart attack and was taken to hospital, where he passed away at 1 pm.
Hailing from Jorhat, a small town in Assam, Garg was born on November 18, 1972 to Mohini Mohon Borthakur and Ily Borthakur. While his mother was a singer – also his first guru who taught him singing at the age of 3, his father is a Magistrate, a lyricist and a poet.
Zubeen’s personal life: His parents, sister, and wife
Zubin started composing songs while he was still in school. He sang in 40 different languages and dialects and played 12 instruments. His sisters were also in the field of singing and dancing. The late singer’s sister Jonkie Borthakur, a talented singer and actor died in a car accident in 2002. His other sister Palme, living in Guwahati currently, is a Bharatnatyam dancer.
Zubeen married Garima Saikia, a fashion designer from Golaghat, Assam on February 4, 2022. While the singer did not have any children of his own, according to reports, he had adopted nearly 15 underprivileged children, supporting them financially and ensuring a good future for them. He was also associated with several charitable organisations dealing with AIDS and brain cancer.
How he started his singing career
While he took the initial training of singing from his mother, Zubeen learnt to play tabla from Guru Robin Banarjee, and Assamese folk music from Guru Romoni Rai.
Zubeen started her singing career with Assamese album Anamika in November 1992. His other notable songs included Xapunor Xur (1992), Junaki Mon (1993), Maya (1994), and Asha (1995) and others. His first bihu album, Ujan Piriti, which was a commercial success.
His Bollywood journey
In 1995, Zubeen made a move to Bollywood and first sung in Hindi language for a solo album called Chandni Raat. His other songs included Chanda (1996), Jalwa (1998), Yuhi Kabhi (1998), Jadoo (1999), Sparsh (2000) etc.
While he is best known for the song Ya Ali from Gangster, he lent his voice to 9000 songs in different languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, and many others.
He also directed and starred in Assamese film Tumi Mor Matho Mor. He received a national award for the movie ‘Dinabandhu’ in 2005, which he also co-produced apart from acting and composing music for it.