This TED Talk features book publisher Cheeky Sarkar, recorded live at TED Salon Unconventional 2018.

Look all around you, whether you're in a subway, a park, an airport, a restaurant, even at this conference. All if you have a phone in your hands or maybe in your

pockets. How many if you have a book? Very few, right? This is the site that used to greet me

every time I walked out of my office block. I was surrounded by a sea of 20-something professionals

glued to their phones, and not a single one had a book in their

hands. And this used to make me very, very frustrated. I was a bookworm all my life. Books formed

the milestones of my life. The first man I fell in love with was Mr. Darcy. I first read Harry Potter

when I was 21 on a summer break from college. And I remember

the first night I spent in a little flat I bought in my mid-20s, very proudly, and I spent the whole

night reading Da Vinci Code. And then I'm going to make a terrible confession, even today when I'm

low, I get into bed with war and peace. Don't laugh.

But I was also like all those people I saw around me. I too lived on my phone. I ordered my groceries

online, and soon my app knew that I needed a monthly dose of diapers. I booked my cinemas in my phone.

I booked planes on my phone.

And when I did the long commute back home,

like most urban Indians, and was stuck in traffic,

I'd passed the time on WhatsApp video chatting my twin.

I was part of an extraordinary revolution that was happening in India.

Indians are the second largest users of smartphones in the world.

And data prices have been slashed so radically that half of urban India

and even a part of rural India now have a smartphone with a data connection

in their hands.

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