Notable poet, philosopher, biographer, and scholar Jaun Elia was remembered on his 11th death anniversary observed on Friday. Born on December 14, 1931 in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, Jaun Elia was the brother of journalist and psychoanalyst Rais Amrohvi and journalist and philosopher Syed Muhammad Taqi, and husband of columnist Zahida Hina. He was fluent in Arabic, English, Persian, Sanskrit and Hebrew.
His father, Shafiq Hasan Elia, was involved in art and literature and also an astrologer and a poet. This literary environment modelled him along the same lines, and he wrote his first Urdu couplet, when he was just eight year old. During his youth, he migrated to Pakistan in 1957, and made Karachi his home. His poetry won him both acclaim and approbation in the local literary circle. His first poetry collection 'Shayad' was published in 1991, when he was 60. His preface in this collection provided deep insights into his works and the culture within which he was expressing his ideas. The second collection of his poetry Ya'ani was published posthumously in 2003. Later his companion, Khalid Ansari, compiled and published his three consecutive collections, 'Gumaan' in 2004, 'Lekin' in 2006 and 'Goya' in 2008.