ISLAMABAD: Lok Virsa on Sunday hosted an event to pay tribute to renowned Urdu poet Juan Elia, which featured singing and recitation of his poetry.

The event also marked the birth and death anniversaries of the poet. Juan Elia was born into an educated family in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, in 1930 and migrated to Pakistan in 1957. Juan Elia was known for writing the truth and openly expressing his opinions. He was fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Persian, English, Sanskrit and Hebrew.

A young singer, Shahram Azhar, sung four of the late poet’s ghazals including Rooh piyasi kahan se ati hai and Kesa dil aur kiya is keh gham he and was accompanied by Jahangir Sabir on the violin, Jerry on the guitar and Sajawal Khan on the tabla.

According to Mr Azhar, Juan’s works are not easy to compose as his topics are very different.

“To sing Juan’s works today for the first time was a spiritual experience for me. He was a poet for humanity,” he said.

The late poet’s daughter, Sohaina Elia, read an essay on her father and said: “Our memories of him are painful as he never accepted us as his children due to the differences he had with our mother, Zahida Hina. He was an unfortunate man as he was flocked by many admirers but lost his near and dear ones due to his aggressive and abusive attitude.”

She said that his poetry was great, but his personality had many defects which caused pain to him and those around him.

Ms Elia said the late poet was afraid of death and hated the number eight, which was the date he died on in November 2002. She said the late poet was a man who loved being the centre of attention.

Drama writer Asghar Nadeem Syed also spoke at the event and said the late poet was fond of two things - pehlwani, which is a form of wrestling, and drama.

“He could not wrestle but he satisfied his craving for drama by making his personality a drama for others. He wanted himself to be discussed more than his poetry, which is why he did not have that much interest in publishing his works,” he said.

Juan Elia’s first collection of poetry, Shayad was published in 1991, when he was 60 and his second collection, Yaani was published in 2003.

Later, the poets’ trustworthy companion Khalid Ansari compiled and published three other collections, including Gumaan in 2004, Lekin in 2006 and Goya in 2008.

Lok Virsa Executive Director Dr Fouzia Seed said Juan Elia was the poet of South Asia and wrote for the common people.

“We believe that Juan Elia’s poetry and that of other revolutionary poets is part of our heritage. Therefore, we conduct such programmes to pay tribute to these great personalities,” she said.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2016