India, March 30 -- The tones are clipped. Every syllable carefully pronounced. The accent is old school. It is during the lockdown that I connect over a phone call with Aditya Narayan Dhairyasheel Haksar, the well-known translator of Sanskrit works. Over the call, he tells me that he has found the quietest corner to sit down for the conversation so that we can proceed unhindered and undisturbed. When another phone threatens to invade the carefully cultivated mindfulness of the discussion, he pauses and shuts it out. He does not desist from making a precise point, pronouncing each word clearly while stressing upon every syllable. The attention to mindfulness and being focused seeps through even over the call and stands in stark contrast to...