We should live like a hill, not like sea.
Confused?
I was too.
So asked, but why a hill?
It is because sea itself comes to people on the beach and touches the feet while hill never does this as it always stands high. If you want to touch and feel the hill, you have no way other than trying hard and climb upon to reach high.
It’s the new lesson and thought that had been introduced to me by him. For me, he has been neither a singer nor a music director and not only an actor too, though he is master in all these form of art. But I feel, the perfect definition and identity that will fit his aura well is nothing but his name only. Yeah, he is none other than Zubeen Garg. It always has been a great experience whenever you get in touch with this musical star of Assam and every time you must end up learning a bit more about Zubeen and his world that filled with innovative ideas and different thoughts. This is why; every recording session with him is full of fun and unanticipated experiences.
Recently, we had another such late night sessions while recording the title track of Boliya Krishna, my play for Hengool Theatre this year. After a wait of two days for Zubeen , I was really desperate to hear my new lyrics in his magnificent voice as we, including music director Palash Gogoi and Director-Producer Sankalpajit Hazarika, had been quite optimistic about this promotional song titled ‘Boliya Krishna, Boliya Krishna, Ahise Naami Morotole..’. The video of this song has been released few days ago starring popular actor Prasenjit Bora and Shyamontika, being directed by Joly Bora and Anup Barua. One thing I must tell you, everyone associated or working with Zubeen must had have two kinds of experiences for sure. Firstly, spend night after long nights in studio waiting for Zubeen Garg to come and sing his or her song and secondly inexpressible experience of receiving a phone call from studio and get to know that the star himself comes and recording your song. That’s Zubeen, always unreadable and unanticipated, but the gem of a person.
Thankfully, on that day, we had the later kind of experience and he was in perfect mood of singing this song which describes the crazy characteristics of the protagonist of the play ‘Boliya Krishna’. After some candid chat, he moves to the dubbing room. I felt, sound engineer Pinku of Red AV studio, Zoo Tiniali was like waiting eagerly for the moment when the star will stand in front of the microphone. Zubeen goes in and starts the recording session. As usual, within a few minutes he completed the song that having two antaras. None of us were surprised to see that, why should we. Because the artist, who had recorded the full song within only about 15-20 minutes, is no-one else, but Zubeen Garg and he has been doing this for last more than 20 long years. After recording the song, again the tiny studio is filled up with the thoughts and ideas of him. Actually, everyone enjoys this after-recording-chats with Zubeen as he will make you think about some aspects you never thought before. Being worried about the current scenario of Assamese film industry, Zubeen has been trying in various ways to restore the glory in Assamese Cinema. He has been making a big budget action film titled ‘Mission China’, in which he is playing the protagonist apart from writing and directing it. He is quite optimistic about the film as well as the entire industry and he urges the govt. to come up with a suitable film policy. Coming back to the song ‘Boliya Krishna’, he stated many things on lighter notes stressing on the word ‘Boliya’, i.e. crazy. For him, being crazy is not bad and it needs a pure heart and immense velour to say openly, Yes, I am ‘boliya’. Zubeen says, ‘I am the hill, not the sea. I would not go to anyone as I prefer to live in my own world of sky and blue clouds. If people want to know about my world, they must have to come to me’.
It was too late. We all were about to leave the studio. Suddenly the maestro asked, ‘Oi, ‘Boliya Krishna Gaantu muk loi likha nai tu no? (Hey, this song about crazy Krishna is not written on me, right?’
This article is written by Rajdweep. Rajdweep is a screenwriter, playwright, lyricist and journalist.