Mareez, the diseased, is a familiar reality in COVID times. But famed Gujarati poet Mareez (Abbas Abdul Ali Vasi) represents just the opposite for me in the lockdown months. His ghazals encourage an acceptance of life; his “philsuphy” speaks of the poise needed in trying times. His lines—dukh maa hriday ne rakho/rakho na dukh hriday maa (keep your heart ticking and compassionate in sombre times, but do not let the adversity or gloom inhabit your heart)—advice against clouding the heart with sadness.

A year ago, I embarked on a Gujarati learning lockdown project, a step-by-step online induction into numbers and alphabets of a variant script.  Ideally, what would have flowered amid face-to-face chats over afternoon tea, progressed as phone-in tuition with my writer-friend Ayesha Khan.  Before agreeing to correct my written passages, Ayesha declared her “outsider” status, as someone who hailed from Baroda, but studied Gujarati only as a second language—her cosmopolitan upbringing did not necessitate Gujarati conversation, more so her Muslim family, which had ancestral roots in Nasik, predominantly spoke Urdu and English. Of course, her journalism in Baroda and Ahmedabad served a vital cultural connect with the language, which I, as a new learner, piggybacked on. Her vantage point was helpful because she could explain not just the spoken idiom, but also social mores, rather dispassionately. She sensitised me to the courtesies (adding bhai/ben as honourifics) and etiquettes specific to regions within Gujarat—Kutch, Kathiavad, Tal Gujarat (central) and the southern part, below the Narmada. “Gujarati manifests distinctly in these regions; the cultural vibe also changes. You need patience to pick up the nuances,” her words resonate, post the second COVID-19 wave, even as I inch closer towards my goal.