The Storm And the Wind- Zubeen Garg and Shelley in the Poetics of Transformation

“I want to revive Romanticism for the youth,” Zubeen Garg once said during a stage performance, a statement
that, at first glance, might seem to refer to lyrical pastoralism—the moon, flowers, rivers and vales that have long
characterized the Romantic imagination and have been recurrent symbols in Zubeen’s lyrical oeuvre too. But
Zubeen’s invocation of Romanticism, as evident in his songs and artistic philosophy, gestures toward a deeper,
more radical spirit—the revolutionary romanticism embodied by poets like Percy Bysshe Shelley. What he sought
was not also an indulgent chase after sensuous beauty alone, or a return to sentimentality or escapism, but to an
ideology of emotional truth, rebellion and renewal. This invocation of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the archetypal "poet
of revolution" whose radical ethos fused aesthetic exaltation with unyielding calls for sociopolitical upheaval,
underscores Zubeen Garg's vision: Romanticism not as nostalgic reverie, but as a dynamic praxis for confronting
injustice and igniting collective fervour among the common man.

Romanticism, as M. H. Abrams defines it, is not merely “the triumph of imagination and emotion over reason”
but also “a revolution in sensibility and consciousness” (The Mirror and the Lamp, 1953). Shelley’s Romanticism
was political as much as it was aesthetic. He believed in poetry’s power to reform society—what he famously
called “the unacknowledged legislator of the world.” Likewise, Zubeen’s oeuvre—stretching across Assamese,
Hindi and Bengali musical cultures—pulses with the same transformative impulse. His music becomes a site of
protest, idealism and hope, recalling Shelley’s conviction that art can alone awaken the moral imagination of a
generation.

Zubeen Garg’s Revolutionary RomanticismZubeen Garg’s lyric Jagat Puhor Kori Ahibo Plabon (A Storm Shall Ignite the World) is a striking testament to his Shelleyan Romanticism. The poem opens with an apocalyptic energy:

Jagat puhor kori aahibo plabon/Aatoribo amanisha bodhibo Rabon/Nika hobo Xamaj Sesh hobo ei paap/ fuli
robo prem xotodol

A storm shall ignite the world in radiant blaze,
Driving away the darkness of night,
Slaying Ravana.
Society will be cleansed,
This sin will end,
Love will bloom like a hundred-petaled lotus.

Here, the “storm” functions both as a natural and moral metaphor—a cosmic cleansing that recalls Shelley’s Ode
to the West Wind (1819), where the poet implores, “Drive my dead thoughts over the universe / Like wither’d
leaves to quicken a new birth!” Both artists imagine destruction not as nihilism but as regeneration; the tempest
becomes the midwife of a new moral dawn.

Zubeen’s “storm” and Shelley’s “wind” are twin emblems of visionary renewal. Shelley’s Romanticism, emerging
from the ferment of the French Revolution, is a poetics of moral insurgency. In Prometheus Unbound (1820),
tyranny is not overthrown by violence but by endurance, forgiveness and imagination. His “revolution” is
spiritual—a transformation of consciousness that precedes political change. He writes, “To suffer woes which
Hope thinks infinite… / This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.”

Both Zubeen and Shelley interpret nature as the moral pulse of the universe. The West Wind becomes Shelley’s
muse and metaphor for intellectual renewal, urging humanity to awaken: “Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d
hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!” Zubeen’s “storm” performs precisely this function—it
ignites, scatters, and redeems.

Each poet envisions art as a natural force capable of dissolving corruption and awakening conscience. When
Zubeen writes, Likha hobo akou natun itihaas/bhondo xamajor hobo parihash (A new history will be written
again, /and the masquerade of the hypocrite-unmasked and mocked) he mirrors Shelley’s conviction that poetry
should unmask hypocrisy and tyranny—seen in works like Prometheus Unbound, where the Titan’s rebellion
against Jupiter symbolizes humanity’s liberation from oppression. Zubeen’s fusion of religious and political
imagery—the slaying of “Ravana,” the purification of “society,” and the rebirth of “a divine race”—recalls
Shelley’s mythic allegory. Both artists deploy myth not as escapism but as transformation that heralds a new dawn
of enlightenment and compassion. The closing lines of the song- Manab Premor Kona/ Parijat phul hoi/ Baraxibo
aair charonot

Shreds of human love,
Like the Parijat flower,
Will rain down at the mother's feet—
transform Shelley’s universal idealism into an Assamese cultural idiom that fuses devotion, love and redemption.
The Parijat, in Indic mythology, is the celestial flower of immortality—born from the cosmic Samudra Manthan
(Churning of the Ocean)—and often associated with divine love, selfless offering and rebirth. By comparing
human love to the Parijat, Zubeen elevates earthly emotion to a plane of spiritual purity. The act of the flower
“raining down at the mother’s feet” signifies not submission but sanctification: love becomes the offering that
redeems a corrupt and violent world.

In Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry (1821), he asserts that “the great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our
nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our
own.” Zubeen’s imagery performs precisely this act of moral transcendence. The human heart, symbolized by the
Parijat, is no longer enclosed within self-interest—it blossoms through empathy, sacrifice and reverence. The
“mother” in Zubeen’s lyric may be read simultaneously as the Mother Earth, the matribhoomi (motherland), and
the archetypal Prakriti—the creative feminine principle of the universe. The raining of flowers thus enacts a
Shelleyan renewal of harmony between the human and the divine, the personal and the planetary.

“Awaken from Slumber”: The Romantic Ideal of Renewal

In Zubeen Garg’s “Kaar Porox”, the Romantic ideal of renewal finds one of its most vivid contemporary
expressions. The lyric opens not with a quiet meditation but with a summon—a call to consciousness that fuses
the political, spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of awakening:

Nidrar pora haar puaa/Utha jaga aru jogua/Soku meli sua porobhat/Hridoyor pora diya maat…..Xopunore rong dusokute loi/Koto je shishu aase aasha loi/Natun aahibo juar aanibo/shanto xundar phuloni hoi
Awaken from slumber,
Rise, rouse the dawn and awaken it too.
Open your eyes to the morning light,
Call out from the depths of your heart.
……
Bearing the colors of dreams in your eyes,
Carrying the tender hopes of a child,
A new tide will come, ushering in
A serene, beautiful garden in bloom.

Zubeen’s “awakening” is both literal and symbolic—a reawakening of moral sensibility and social conscience.
Like the Romantics of early nineteenth-century Europe, he conceives of imagination as an act of regeneration, a
means to resist inertia and cynicism. His “morning light” echoes the “intellectual charm” that Wordsworth sought
in The Prelude and that Shelley envisioned in Prometheus Unbound, where the earth itself awakens to freedom
and love.

M. H. Abrams, in Natural Supernaturalism (1971), describes Romanticism as the “secularization of spiritual
redemption”—a transformation of biblical resurrection into moral and imaginative rebirth. Zubeen’s lyric
embodies precisely this process: his “serene, beautiful garden in bloom” is not an otherworldly paradise but a
metaphor for ethical renewal within the human world. The “tender hopes of a child” recall Shelley’s recurring
image of innocence as revolutionary potential—what Harold Bloom calls “the child as the unfallen self,” the
vessel of uncorrupted vision (The Visionary Company, 1961). Zubeen’s call to “Rise, rouse the dawn” mirrors
Shelley’s prophetic imperative in The Mask of Anarchy:

“Rise like Lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you.”

Both artists transform the metaphors of sleep and awakening into political allegories. For Shelley, slumber
signifies moral lethargy under tyranny; for Zubeen, it is the numbness of a generation alienated from its creative
conscience. The act of awakening—rousing not only oneself but “the dawn itself”—becomes a collective
awakening of a people, an artistic and ethical revolution.

Northrop Frye, in The Anatomy of Criticism (1957), observes that Romantic art tends toward “apocalypse”—the
imaginative recreation of the world in symbolic perfection. Zubeen’s “new tide” and “garden in bloom” fulfill that
apocalyptic pattern: they signal a world redeemed by empathy and vision, where the individual’s inner awakening
transforms social reality. The poet-musician here becomes what Shelley termed a “hierophant of an
unapprehended inspiration”—a phrase that Shelley used to define the role of poet and poetry in society, which
implies a prophet of renewal who uses art to awaken the sleeping moral imagination.

Zubeen’s lyric, in this case too, is deeply rooted in Assamese and Indic sensibilities. The dawn and the blooming
garden recall not only Shelley’s West Wind but also the Upanishadic and Bhakti traditions of ‘prabhat’—the
spiritual awakening at daybreak that unites the temporal and the divine. His “tide” may be read as the cultural
resurgence of a people long bound by conformity, much like Shelley’s revolutionary tide that seeks to wash away
“the painted veil which those who live call Life.”

Zubeen’s concluding image—“A serene, beautiful garden in bloom”—also invites comparison with Shelley’s final
vision in Prometheus Unbound, where “Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance” regenerate the fallen world.
Shelley’s regenerated Earth, bathed in light, finds its Assamese counterpart in Zubeen’s luminous morning. Both
images represent the consummation of Romantic hope: the reconciliation of human love, natural beauty and divine peace. Zubeen Garg’s revolutionary message is effective—carried by music, by emotion, by the collective
heartbeat of his listeners. The Romantic ideal is reborn through melody, and renewal becomes both a personal and cultural phenomenon.

About The Author

(Kaushik Hazarika teaches English at Guwahati College)

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