মন যায় (Mon Jai) Zubeenda me and Assamese people

 

I was inside a conference hall in Puducherry, attending a national conference of microbiologists, when the news popped up on my mobile screen. I fact-checked, re-checked… and found it was true.

My talk was over, but I was supposed to interact with peers and finish some official work. Instead, I returned to my Hotel. That night, sitting by the sea at Rock Beach, his memories kept coming back to me over and over again…

It could be in 1994. I remember a hoarding in Ganeshguri — a comic-style poster of Mon Jai, a movie under production, with Zubeen saying: “I wish to make money, I wish to make movies, I wish to…”

It struck a chord with the wavelength of my own youth.

I too wished to make movies.

I, too, wished to write songs and screenplays.

I, too, wished to do experiments in Physics like Niels Bohr.

But by that time, I was a proud first-year medical student, just a fresher in college.

Zubeen appeared like a comet in the Assamese music scene. Around 1992, when I was preparing for my High School Leaving Certificate exam, I had a habit of looking at the covers of new books and new cassettes. One day, I spotted the photograph of a thin, spectacled Zubeen on Anamika. I couldn’t buy it immediately, so I borrowed it from a friend and duplicated it.

The songs were smooth melodies. My favourite was Pritir Xubaxe (The Fragrance of Love), with lyrics by the legendary Hiren Bhattacharya. Within a few months, all the songs became viral across Assam. The older generation was sceptical, but for us, it was new magic.

In 1992 itself, I watched his first live performance at Dispur Bihutoli (now inside the Secretariat campus). My first impression was unimpressive — a skinny figure, with bamboo-like legs in tight jeans, and mannerisms of a roadside Jorhatiya Romeo. I was struck by how ordinary he looked compared to the extraordinary voice that had already become our companion.

Then came Maya — another superhit. Soon, every young Assamese aspiring musician was imitating him.

The rise, falls, and reappearances and rediscoveries. 

Zubeen became a machine of mass production. As a self-styled “pseudo-intellectual,” I carried some inhibition against an icon with such mass appeal. But he kept coming back, again and again.

At one point, after signing with Sony Music, he stopped live performances for 2–3 years. But when he returned to George Field, I was there too. This time, he was sober, sang from his heart, and connected with everyone.

Then tragedy struck with the untimely death of his sister Jonki in an accident. The whole of Assam cried with him. Later, at the Brahmaputra Beach Festival, he re-emerged, singing a duet originally started by Jonki and completed posthumously. It was a profoundly moving moment.

In parallel, I too tried to pursue my Mon Jai alongside medicine. I became an amateur playwright and director (now retired from that), though the film we wanted to make never happened. I built a career as a microbiologist, medical teacher, and, to some extent, as a writer. Yet, I often felt I never truly fulfilled my Mon Jai the way Zubeen did.

Zubeen’s Mon jai 

Zubinda ventured into films — writing, directing, and acting. The movie quality may not always have been perfect, but he gave our small Assamese industry the star power it needed. His collaborations with professional directors, especially Munin Baruah, remain iconic. Who can forget the songs of Hiya Diya Niya? They are companions for Assamese hearts everywhere, inside and outside Assam.

I personally disliked the flood of VCD songs and the raucous crowds they attracted at Bihutolis and picnics. Sometimes, Zubeen’s public comments bordered on megalomania. And yet, he would occasionally return with a sober, innocent face, like in the movie Dinabandhu. How could the same Zubeen suddenly look so pure, so fresh?

Meanwhile, he found his place in Bollywood as well. I remember watching Gangster in Dibrugarh when Ya Ali was already a chartbuster. I watched the movie in Dibrugarh, Assam, without any expectation. Still, the moment Zubeen appeared on the big screen, the entire hall erupted in joy. It was another “comeback” moment for me.

I left Assam in 2006 and watched Mon Jai (the movie), which was much delayed in production. Zubeen’s character in it symbolised the desperation of Assamese youth at that time. So many dreams (mon jai, mon jai) but so few avenues. The protagonist takes a destructive path — a warning about roads from which there is no return.

This happens with every artist who connects deeply with the people.

Bhupen Hazarika, too, was commodified, and we all cried again and again when he left us. But Bhupenda had mentors like Bishnu Rabha and Jyoti Prasad Agarwala. Their ethos shaped him, even if they had passed away long ago. Zubeen, by contrast, had no such guiding force. His lifestyle, habits, and occasional political flip-flops — which I never understood — perhaps reflected an unguided Mon Jai. And tragically, it has led to a fatal result.

A reflection for us all

I personally saw (!) him last in 2018, I was on a flight as an external examiner to Assam, he was seated in front of me ... and my ego refused me to wish him.... as a redemption, I am sitting in my Hotel and not willing to go back to the conference Hall for today till I finish this writing

Zubinda lived as he wished (mon jai), and in doing so, became the voice of our generation. His journey is both an inspiration and a warning.

In this transitional time, when definitions of everything are rapidly changing, we must learn to guide our emotions with an upright ethos. That may be the rightful way to live a life — a way that balances Mon Jai with responsibility.

The Storyteller

Author Sanjoy Das

 

Storytellers come in many forms. But ever since Gutenberg, the traditional oral storyteller has almost disappeared. Where do you still find them today? Maybe in a remote hill village, a jungle campfire, or a forgotten corner of the country—where people still tell stories, not for fame or prizes, but simply for the joy of telling.

For the last 25 years, I have been writing fiction. But am I really a “storyteller”? The line between a writer and a storyteller is fuzzy, and honestly, not my primary concern. What matters to me is the experience of stories—how they live, travel, and transform.

Recently, I watched The Storyteller, Ananth Mahadevan’s film based on a short story by Satyajit Ray. At its heart is a fascinating clash: an oral storyteller meets a businessman who secretly longs to be a writer. Who truly “owns” a story—the one who tells it or the one who pens it?

That question took me back to my days in Dehradun (2007–2012), when I had the privilege of knowing an unforgettable oral storyteller—Dr. Sanjoy Das. We spent almost five years in close company. Every evening, he would take us into the jungle or sometimes into the comfort of a hotel lounge, and then—story after story would flow.

He was a wildlife enthusiast and photographer, and his tales often came from real adventures in forests across India. Some had supernatural twists, others were so wild that I doubted them. Years later, I met a few of the “characters” in real life and realised his stories were true.

Despite his gift, he was strangely reluctant to publish. He had a coffee-table book ready, but instead of printing, he kept “finishing” it in Photoshop. For years! Whenever I suggested meeting a publisher, he dodged the idea—just like Tarini Bandopadhyay in The Storyteller.

At times, I wondered—did he really want his book out in the world? Or was telling the story enough for him? I even tried helping him connect with publishers, but nothing worked out before I left Dehradun in 2012.

Much later, the book finally came out. When I visited him a few months ago, he gifted me a copy. Holding it, I felt a strange pride. I hadn’t written a single line, yet I was part of it—because I had lived inside those stories for years.

The experience reminded me of another film—Big Fish. Its protagonist is also an extravagant storyteller, while his son, a writer, keeps questioning the truth of his tales. Only when the son meets the people from those stories does he finally reconcile with his father’s world.

For me, Dr. Sanjoy Das is my own “Big Fish.” His reluctant masterpiece may have taken years, but his stories—told with the same intensity every time—were always alive, somewhere between myth and truth. And perhaps that is what makes a real storyteller.