Jon Elia was a renowned Pakistani
Urdu poet and a notable philosopher and scholar. He was born on December 14,
1931 in Amroha, India. His father's name was Shafiq Hasan Elia who was a
literary person, astrologer and scholar of his time. Jon Elia was the younger
brother of famous journalist and literary figure Rais Amrohvi and the world
fame philosopher, Syed Muhammad Taqi. Jon Elia migrated to Pakistan in 1957,
and settled in Karachi.
During his teen age, Jon Elia
used to do dramatic presentations of the early Muslim period. According to him,
his early poetry reflected the dialogue nature of stage drama. In the preface
of his first collection of poetry "Shayad", he revealed that he was
quite fond of theatre in his teen age. There was a small drama club in Amroha,
named Bazm-i-Haq, where stage plays were organized regularly based on Islamic
history. Jon Elia got extremely involved in such plays. He tried to establish
his own drama club and scripted and stage his own play for it. Jon wrote many
socialistic poems in those days, and acknowledged this fact later that it was
the influence of drama that the dialogue and conversational element became his
style in his poetry.
He belonged to an intellectual
family where the discussions on poetry. logic, philosophy, history and religion
were like a passion. This literary environment of his home and his family
traditions were quite conducive to ignite a spark of poetry in him. Though Jon
proved to be a brilliant poet of Urdu Ghazal but he also proved his mettle in
Nazm, Hamd, Natt, Noha, Marsia, Qaseeda, Qawali, Shehr-e-Ashob, etc.
Jon Elia had a thorough command
over language and used it artistically. His diction is wrapped in the classical
tradition. He became renowned as a distinguished Urdu poet thanks to his very
different and unmatched style. He had a thorough grasp over Urdu, Persian,
Arabic, Sanskrit and Hebrew. His Knowledge of philosophy, logic, Islamic
history, the Muslim Sufi tradition, and western literature was vast which gave
a distinguished color and a touch of beauty to his poetry.
Jon Elia invented many new
metrical schemes in his poetry. He also produced hundreds of unusual phrases.
He used well-rhymed Nazms and free-verse poems. He had a remarkable command
over the form and content. In Jon Elia's poetry one can see superb synthesis of
the traditional and the modern verse. In his poetry, he showed excellent grip
over writing verses in "sehl-e-mumtana".
He was a romantic poet with a
vision. He always tried to take along laymen in his literary pursuits.
He wrote excellent poems
reflecting his ideological views though it is unfortunate that his poems were
overshadowed by his ghazals. The existential foundations of his poetry slowly
dragged him towards nihilism, which can be seen in his poems like "Aziyyat
kee yaddasht", "Burj-i-Babul", "Saza", "Shehr
Aashob" etc.
In Mushairas (poetic gatherings)
he almost always dominated the other poets and kept on enthralling the
audience. In such gatherings, he sometimes used to make a small introductory
speech before the start of his poetry which always energized the listeners,
even during the mundane sessions. He had his own peculiar style to recite
poetry in mushairas which became so popular that many young poets tried to copy
it.
Numerous young poets looked at
him for guidance and inspiration and a large number of writers and poets were
benefitted from him. He had become an icon for many even during his life time.
Though he worte abundantly, but
he had no inclination to publish his work. His first poetry collection"
Shayad" was published in 1991, when he was almost sixty years old. His
poetry in " Shayad sparkled his name in the world of Urdu poetry. His
preface of this book is a beautiful example of his refined Urdu prose which
also throws enough light on the culture he lived in and his frame of mind.
"Ya'ani" was the second
collection of his poetry published in 2003 after his death. After this, one of
his close friend Khalid Ansari, compiled and published three of his
collections. "Gumaan" in 2004. "Lekin" in 2006 and
"Gaya" in 2008.
Jon Elia was also remained active
in translation, editing and other activities.
His translation of various
Mautazalite treatises, a book on Hasan Bin Sabah, and various writing on the
Ismaili sect in Islam can be regarded as his prominent contributions to urdu
literature.
He also used to edit Urdu
literary magazine "Insha". Jon Elia was married to Zahida Hina, a
famous columnist. He had two daughters and a son from her. Jon and Zahida were
divorced in the mid-1980s.
Throughout of his life, Jon
remained a man of principles. He was courageous enough to raise his voice of
protest and dissent whenever he saw something happening against his conscience.
He was a chronic TB patient since
his mid-50s and but he managed to survive thanks to sheer will power. Jon died
after a prolonged illness on 8 November 2002 in Karachi.
On Men of Letters Series Jon Elia, Pakistan Post is issuing a commemorative postage stamp of Rs.8/-denomination on November 8, 2013.
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