Rais Amrohvi

Syed Muhammad Mahdi (September 1914 – 22 September 1988), commonly known as Rais Amrohvi, was a Pakistani Urdu poet, paranormal investigator and psychoanalyst. He was known for his style of qatanigari (quatrain writing). He wrote quatrains for Pakistani newspaper Jang for several decade. He promoted the Urdu language and supported the Urdu-speaking people of Pakistan. His family is regarded as a family of poets. He was the elder brother of poet Jaun Elia.

The Sindh Assembly passed The Sind Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill, 1972 that created conflict and language violence in the regime of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Amrohvi wrote his famous poem Urdu ka janaza hai zara dhoom say niklay (It's Urdu's funeral, make it befitting!). He also intended to translate the Bhagavad Gita into standard Urdu.

He was also a scriptwriter, one of the movies he wrote being Waqt Ki Pukar (1967), a spy thriller about a journalist, based on his brother Muhammad Taqi, exposing anti-state elements and which anticipated the 1971 Bangladesh separation.