The Afternoon I Drank With Zubeen Garg in Mumbai

If you're from Assam, you'd know that almost everyone has a Zubeen story. This is mine, writes Tridip K Mandal.

Zubeen was so much more than just the boy-next-door, he was everyone’s own: a son, a friend, a brother. Forever 'Zubeen da.'

(Photo: PTI)

I hadn’t met Zubeen Garg in the last 19 years. Till his sudden passing, I didn't even think it was important enough to talk about my encounter with him in the summer of 2006. Back then, it felt like just another assignment, another story, insignificant enough to ignore, forget, and move on.

But can you ever move on from some of your core memories? If you are from Assam, then you understand that almost everyone has a Zubeen story to tell. This is mine.

The Arrival of Zubeen

Spring 2006. That year, Himesh Reshammiya was the biggest deal in Bollywood music. His nasal numbers were ruling the charts when the music album of Gangster came out. One of the rare non-Himesh albums that year, the songs became an overnight hit.

It was the pre-YouTube, pre-Spotify era when FM radio or audio CDs were the only way to hear the latest Bollywood songs. That’s how I first heard the haunting melodies of Gangster on my daily bus rides to work and back. Every track was a smash hit. It was the breakout album for many—Pritam, the music director; James, KK, and Zubeen, the singers. 

Since I'm from Shillong, and so was my editor, I was asked to profile this "new singer from Assam” who had just broken into Bollywood with 'Ya Ali', a fast tempo Sufi number with an Arabic influence. Zubeen always had a screen presence, so Anurag Basu, the director of Gangster, got him to sing the song on-screen as well. 

A Drink in the Afternoon

I called Zubeen, thinking he would be in Assam, hoping our Guwahati bureau would shoot with him. He told me that he lives in Mumbai now—and I could meet him in the studio of a radio station the next day. Zubeen had arrived in the Bollywood playback scene; everyone was curious about this singer from Assam. Few realised how big a star he was back home. 

I met Zubeen for the first time in the Red FM studio. He was really excited as he could finally speak with someone in Assamese and be his true self, and the first thing he asked,

“Yaate usorote bar aache naaki?” (Is there a bar close by?)

So, that afternoon, we ended up in Ambience Bar in Lower Parel. It had no real ambience—more a dingy dance-bar vibe—but Zubeen was perfectly at home. I could sense that he enjoyed drinking, he also never tried to hide it publicly. There was a perception that he couldn’t sing without drinking. Did it eventually lead to an alcohol problem? I don’t know. In this Hindustan Times piece, Zubeen talks how drinking took a toll on his health and vocal chords.

Anyway, coming back to that afternoon in Ambience, over two Haywards Strong beers, Zubeen opened up. 

The first thing I got to know is that he’s nocturnal; he didn’t really like afternoons and mornings. It was the live radio interview that had dragged him out of home during the day. And then he said something that stayed with me: in Mumbai, no one knew how big he was in Assam. There, he was worshipped. Here, he was just another struggler trying to land playback gigs.

I could sense it weighed on him—that strange split identity. A legend in one place, a nobody in another. Maybe that’s why he eventually stopped chasing Bollywood and went back to his comfort zone, his people. To sing for them. To live in their love. His passing, and the grief that has engulfed Assam, has shown exactly that: the boy-next-door who sang 38,000 songs was indeed a legend.

Breakfast at Noon

Shoot day. I met him a couple of days later at his residence in Andheri’s Sher-e-Punjab colony. He had strictly asked us not to come early. It was around noon that I reached his place with my camera team, but it took him a good 45 minutes to wake up. But we still couldn't start the shoot. There was breakfast to be had first.

So, we had Assamese-style Luchi (a kind of poori) and alu dom (potato curry) with Assam tea, lovingly prepared by his wife Garima. You could tell he wasn’t like other strugglers in Mumbai. He had earned enough from his album sales and shows in Assam to buy a two-storied bungalow in the city.

We interviewed him in his home studio. I wanted the rest of India to know who Zubeen really was—his stature in Assam, his diehard fan following, why he wanted to succeed in Bollywood now, and what ‘Ya Ali’ really meant to him.

‘Ya Ali’ wasn’t Zubeen's first song in Bollywood; he had sung in films like Kaante a couple of years back but never got noticed. Music director Pritam had told me that he wanted Zubeen to sing ‘Ya Ali’ as it had long sections of ‘aalaap’—and Zubeen was really good at it. ‘Ya Ali’ gave Zubeen a pan-India identity. But I think, for him, it was too little, too late, and he no longer cared. 

Zubeen made his singing debut in the winter of 1992 with the superhit album ‘Anamika’. His real Bollywood break came 14 years later. By then, he was a massive star in Assam. So, when ‘Ya Ali’ happened, he was well accustomed to take success in his stride. Everyone was raving about this new singer from the Northeast, but I think Zubeen had made up his mind that if ‘Ya Ali’ opened the doors for more work in Bollywood for him, it’s fine, else he always had the option of going back to his fans in Assam, which he eventually did.

Zubeen was a misfit in Mumbai. He wasn’t interested in struggling from scratch for Bollywood success. He was the boy from the locality who liked to hang out in the neighbourhood tea stall or take part in some ‘adda’ – something he couldn’t do in Mumbai. Perhaps he missed the affection and the adulation, being the boy-next-door. 

But Zubeen was so much more than just the boy-next-door, he was everyone’s own: a son, a friend, a brother. Forever 'Zubeen da.' Not just Zubeen Garg. 

Footnote: After his death, I saw this viral reel, where Zubeen mentions that  Mumbai is too "chaotic" for him, affectionately adding that while singer Arijit Singh likes smoking, he prefers drinking. 'Dhuaan' or smoke was not his thing. Arijit was into Air force, and he was in the Navy. 

Sadly, his final breath slipped away in the vastness of the Singapore sea. 

When his pyre was lit up at Kamarkuchi on 23 September, all that was left was 'Dhuaan'.

(Tridip K Mandal is a journalist and creative director who closely observes and follows issues from Northeast India. This is an opinion piece. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)