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Unsung but not unlamented
The death of Jon Elia has left many of his admirers in deep shock.
His was truly an epochal personality who left indelible imprints on
the minds of those who speak sense in society.
His poetry emanates from the existential issues begotten by the
modern age, which reduced the status of man into a cog in the
capitalist machinery.
He laboured on a variety of issues, from mundane affairs to the
complexities of the contemporary philosophical and political thought.
His poetry was informed by the existentialist philosophy of Jean Paul
Satre and Kierkegard on the dilemma of a being thrown into the world,
who is obliged to give meaning to his life.
Jon Elia underwent much mental upheaval as a consequence of his
internalization of trends of thoughts across the philosophical
spectrum vis-a-vis changing socio-economic and political realities of
his era. He went to the extent of tormenting his own fellows, ever
stinging out of lethargy into a life exhibiting the bitter realities
that remain unexplored because of the bad faith of intellectuals.
His age experienced an unprecedented litany of political expediency
and opportunism on the part of stereotypical liberal intelligentsia
to the great disillusionment of his countrymen.
Elia despised the commercialization of art in vogue in a market-
oriented society where human passion and creativity are commodified.
An atheist with Marxist leanings, Jon Elia sharpened the sword of
wisdom on the whetstone of reason to use it against the forces of
obscurantism. Man was central to his philosophy.
To eulogize a man who was more a complex phenomenon than a
personality would be a travesty of sorts. In composing a conventional
elegy for him, one would be forced to reduce everything he stood for
to platitudes, which might be grandiose, but would be transient.
For those who lament his death, the comforting option of erecting
memorial edifices just does not exist. Jon Elia has left us the
bequest of his rich oeuvre. He has condemned us to eternal, untiring
and brutally critical examination of our self and our circumstances.
This is a sentence we will gladly, if a trifle uncomfortably, bear.
AAMIR HUSSAIN NIHAL AND AZIZ ALI DAD
London
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