By: Prof Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad
Assam has produced many singers who are famous worldwide for their melodious voices, and many great music personalities were born in Assam. Here, I wish to mention five renowned singers/music personalities from Assam. The list is incomplete without Bhupen Hazarika, bard of the Brahmaputra; Zubeen Garg; Angaraag Mahanta, popularly known as Papon; Pratima Barua Pandey; Dipali Barthakur; and many others.
Zubeen Garg, a singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist renowned especially in Assamese, Bengali, and Bollywood, was in Singapore for the North-east Festival. He was scheduled to perform at the festival on September 19, 2025. Garg died in a freak accident in Singapore. He was 52 years old. Garg died after sustaining injuries in a scuba diving accident. Although he was rescued from the sea and taken to the nearby hospital, the doctors were unable to save him.
Zubeen Garg was born to an Assamese family at Tura, Meghalaya, to Mohini Mohon Borthakur and Ily Borthakur. He was named after the famous music composer Zubin Mehta and used his gotra, Garg, as his surname. His father, Mohini Borthakur, was a magistrate and is a lyricist and a poet under the name Kapil Thakur, and his mother, Ily Borthakur, was a singer. Garg’s younger sister, Jongki Borthakur, was an actress and singer who died in a car accident in February 2002 in Sonitpur district, Assam, while they were going to perform a stage show along with her co-artists. Garg released the album Xixhu in 2002, in memory of her. Another sister of his is Dr. Palme Borthakur, a singer.
Garg married Garima Saikia, a fashion designer from Golaghat, Assam, on February 4, 2002.

Zubeen Garg (born Zubeen Borthakur on November 18, 1972, and died on September 18, 2025) primarily worked for and sang in the Assamese, Bengali, and Hindi-language film and music industries and had sung in 40 other languages and dialects, including Bishnupriya Manipuri, Adi, Boro, English, Goalpariya, Kannada, Karbi, Khasi, Malayalam, Marathi, Mishing, Nepali, Odia, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Tiwa. He was also a multi-instrumentalist and played 12 instruments, including the anandalahari, dhol, do-tara, drums, guitar, harmonica, harmonium, mandolin, keyboard, tabla, and various percussion instruments. Garg married Garima Saikia, a fashion designer from Golaghat, Assam, on February 4, 2002. On May 27, 2024, Zubeen Garg was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature (D.Litt.) degree by the University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya.
His sudden demise is a significant loss in the music world in the country.

References:
1) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Zubeen_Garg
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubeen_Garg
3) https://assamtoday.in/top-5-assamese-singers-in-assam/

https://assamtoday.in/top-5-assamese-singers-in-assam/