India, Dec. 19 -- Despite the dazzling glare and shimmer of the screen, the yearning for books, conversation, poetry recitations and music remains unremitting. There is a remarkable enthusiasm even in languages other than English, and this interest constitutes a form of reflective meditation that engages people across barriers of language, religion, and caste.

In digital media-driven social relations, people tend to anchor their fluid identities in cultural heritage, as manifested through their languages, to internalise knowledge. This has been happening at a time when direct experience is being replaced by curated images. But reading and listening in local languages upends the passive, fragmented attention spans of an information techno...