A year without Zubeen Garg: How does someone suddenly cease to exist?

It will soon be a year since Zubeen Garg passed away. A year is a long time by most measures; long enough for the shock to settle, for the tears to dry and for life to return to its usual rhythm. Many people have accepted what happened. Some have moved on. I, perhaps, belong to the other category. What I find astonishing about death is not merely that someone dies. It is how a person can suddenly cease to exist. Throughout our lives, we meet people and part ways. Friends move to different cities. Cousins become strangers. Colleagues leave their jobs. Acquaintances disappear from our lives. We accept these departures because, somewhere in our minds, we know that these people continue to exist. They are somewhere, living their lives. Death, however, is different. People often say that death puts life into perspective. That it teaches us to appreciate the people around us. Perhaps it does. But I don't think that is true for everyone. Sometimes, death simply leaves behind a question that has no satisfactory answer. For me, September 19, 2025, began like any other morning. At around 10.17 am, while travelling to the office, Joya was playing in the cab. I had heard that song countless times. I hummed along almost automatically, without giving it much thought. Within a few hours, the song was no longer the same. I was no longer the same. Assam was no longer the same. The news of Zubeen Garg's death did something unusual to the state. It did not remain a piece of news. It became a collective wound. File image of streets flooded with people bidding their last tribute to Zubeen Garg during his final rites (Photo: @_AdilHussain/X) Shops shut. Roads emptied. People gathered with candles, earthen lamps and flowers. Mayabini could be heard from homes, streets and public gatherings. Guwahati's lanes smelled of tuberose and marigold as people continued to arrive to pay their last respects. For days, Assam seemed to speak in Zubeen's voice. People began telling stories about him. Someone had met him at a concert. Someone had spoken to him briefly. Someone had watched him rehearse. Someone remembered him being late to a show. Someone remembered being inconvenienced by the enormous crowds he drew. There were people who had once been angry with him for arriving late or frustrated by the chaos surrounding his performances. After his death, some of those same people regretted that anger. That, perhaps, is one of the quieter lessons of Garg's death. We never know which ordinary interaction will become our last memory of someone. We never know when a casual conversation will become the final one. We never know when the person we are annoyed with today will no longer be around tomorrow. Garg's life was larger than music. He was part of Assam's everyday soundscape. His songs accompanied love stories, heartbreaks, celebrations, journeys, festivals and ordinary evenings. For an entire generation, his voice was not something they simply listened to. It was something they grew up with. And perhaps that is why his absence feels so strange. A new generation will grow up knowing Zubeen Garg as a name, a voice in old recordings, photographs and stories told by their parents. They will hear Mayabini, Joya and countless other songs, but they will never know what it felt like to have Zubeen Da suddenly appear on a stage and make an entire crowd sing with him. That is the strange cruelty of time. People disappear, but the world continues. Songs remain. Photographs remain. Memories remain. But the person does not. Perhaps all we can do, while we are still here, is be a little kinder to one another. We are often impatient with people over the smallest things. We assume there will always be another day to make things right. What if there isn't? We never know which moment, which conversation, which irritation or which goodbye will become the last thing we remember about someone. For some of us, Zubeen Garg's death is still not something we have completely come to terms with. Perhaps we never will. And perhaps that is all right.