A mural of late singer Zubeen Garg painted on a roadside wall in Guwahati, Assam. File
| Photo Credit: PTI
GUWAHATI
Two of Assam’s tallest cultural icons, Bhupen Hazarika and Zubeen Garg, will be the focus of the second edition of the Brahmaputra Literature Festival to be held from February 6 to 8 in 2026.
Adharxila Trust, a non-profit organisation focused on the literary and cultural heritage of India’s northeastern region, said the literature festival will be held in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar town after a series of events elsewhere in the State, including a curtain-raiser in western Assam’s Gauripur.
The inaugural festival was part of the last World Book Fair in New Delhi. The Sivasagar edition, themed ‘A Confluence of Rhythm, World, and Spirit – Celebrating the Voice of Humanity’, will be the first to be held in the State.
“The Brahmaputra is not merely a river; it is a metaphor for humanity — vast, inclusive, timeless, and musical,” author, festival director, and chief trustee of Adharxila Trust, Rita Chowdhury, said on Sunday (December 14, 2025).
“The upcoming event will be an immersive three-day experience involving music, poetry, cinema, and oral traditions of art and culture. The theme reflects the commitment towards honouring the region’s artistic soul, while building bridges across nations, languages, and cultures,” Ms. Chowdhury said.
A major part of the literature festival would be devoted to Bhupen Hazarika in celebration of his birth centenary, and to Zubeen Garg, whose death in Singapore on September 19 triggered a mass outpouring of grief in Assam, Ms. Chowdhury said.
The revenue generated from her special uncut interview with Garg would be fixed for 20 years to fund budding artistes in Assam, she said.
The spotlight of the literature festival would be on tribal heritage and indigenous storytelling traditions, especially those of the Bodo and Mishing communities, Ms. Chowdhury further said.
Published – December 14, 2025 06:29 pm IST
