0:00:01.032,0:00:02.562
Look all around you.

0:00:02.586,0:00:08.286
Whether you're in a subway, a park,[br]an airport, a restaurant,

0:00:08.310,0:00:10.029
even at this conference,

0:00:10.053,0:00:13.441
all of you have a phone in your hands[br]or maybe in your pockets.

0:00:13.465,0:00:15.291
How many of you have a book?

0:00:15.315,0:00:16.465
Very few, right?

0:00:17.069,0:00:18.946
This is the sight that used to greet me

0:00:18.970,0:00:21.077
every time I walked out[br]of my office block.

0:00:21.101,0:00:24.752
I was surrounded by a sea[br]of 20-something professionals

0:00:24.776,0:00:26.243
glued to their phones.

0:00:26.560,0:00:29.038
And not a single one[br]had a book in their hands.

0:00:29.600,0:00:32.195
And this used to make me[br]very, very frustrated.

0:00:32.505,0:00:34.671
I was a bookworm all my life.

0:00:34.695,0:00:37.403
Books formed the milestones of my life.

0:00:37.427,0:00:40.474
The first man I fell[br]in love with was Mr. Darcy.

0:00:40.990,0:00:46.080
I first read "Harry Potter" when I was 21,[br]on a summer break from college.

0:00:46.601,0:00:50.990
And I remember the first night I spent[br]in a little flat I bought in my mid-20s,

0:00:51.014,0:00:52.426
very proudly,

0:00:52.450,0:00:55.355
and I spent the whole night[br]reading "The Da Vinci Code."

0:00:55.379,0:00:57.688
And then I'm going to make[br]a terrible confession:

0:00:57.712,0:01:01.391
even today, when I'm low,[br]I get into bed with "War and Peace."

0:01:01.415,0:01:02.565
Don't laugh.

0:01:02.589,0:01:03.620
(Laughter)

0:01:04.030,0:01:07.331
But I was also like all those[br]people I saw around me:

0:01:07.355,0:01:09.029
I, too, lived on my phone.

0:01:09.053,0:01:11.537
I ordered my groceries online,

0:01:11.561,0:01:15.695
and soon my app knew[br]that I needed a monthly dose of diapers.

0:01:16.339,0:01:19.220
I booked my cinemas on my phone.

0:01:19.244,0:01:21.913
I booked planes on my phone.

0:01:21.937,0:01:26.326
And when I did the long commute back home[br]like most urban Indians,

0:01:26.350,0:01:28.143
and was stuck in traffic,

0:01:28.167,0:01:32.057
I passed the time on WhatsApp,[br]video-chatting my twin.

0:01:33.437,0:01:37.803
I was part of an extraordinary revolution[br]that was happening in India.

0:01:37.827,0:01:41.957
Indians are the second-largest[br]users of smartphones in the world.

0:01:42.466,0:01:46.323
And data prices have been[br]slashed so radically

0:01:46.347,0:01:50.045
that half of urban India[br]and even a part of rural India

0:01:50.069,0:01:53.347
now have a smartphone[br]with a data connection in their hands.

0:01:53.371,0:01:55.204
And if you know anything about India,

0:01:55.228,0:01:58.554
you'll know that "half" means,[br]like, all of America or something.

0:01:58.578,0:02:00.125
You know, it's large numbers.

0:02:00.149,0:02:01.299
(Laughter)

0:02:02.220,0:02:04.998
And these numbers are just growing[br]and growing and growing.

0:02:05.022,0:02:06.204
They're exploding.

0:02:06.228,0:02:08.300
And what they're doing[br]is empowering Indians

0:02:08.324,0:02:10.782
in all kinds of extraordinary ways.

0:02:10.806,0:02:14.244
And yet, none of these changes[br]that I was seeing around me

0:02:14.268,0:02:17.174
were reflected in my world,[br]my world of books.

0:02:18.006,0:02:21.101
I live in a country the size of Europe,

0:02:21.125,0:02:23.594
and it only has 50 decent bookshops.

0:02:24.053,0:02:27.290
And Indians just didn't seem[br]to want to read for fun.

0:02:27.314,0:02:29.825
So if you look at all[br]the best-seller lists in India,

0:02:29.849,0:02:32.070
what you'll always find[br]in the best-seller list

0:02:32.094,0:02:33.909
is exam and professional guides.

0:02:33.933,0:02:37.928
Imagine if you found the SAT guides[br]as the "New York Times" number one seller,

0:02:37.953,0:02:39.417
month after month.

0:02:41.659,0:02:46.459
And yet, the smartphone revolution[br]was creating readers and writers

0:02:46.484,0:02:48.229
of a different kind.

0:02:48.254,0:02:51.095
Whether it was on Facebook or WhatsApp,

0:02:51.119,0:02:55.960
Indians were writing and sharing[br]and reading all kinds of things:

0:02:55.984,0:02:59.698
terrible jokes, spurious pop history,

0:02:59.722,0:03:02.398
long, emotional confessions,

0:03:02.422,0:03:04.593
diatribes against the government.

0:03:04.617,0:03:07.903
And as I read and shared these things,[br]I wondered to myself,

0:03:07.927,0:03:12.189
"Could I get these writers[br]and these readers,

0:03:12.213,0:03:14.546
could I turn them into my readers?"

0:03:15.212,0:03:17.895
And so I left my plush corner office

0:03:17.919,0:03:22.291
and my job as the publisher[br]of India's top publishing company,

0:03:22.315,0:03:23.993
and I set up on my own.

0:03:24.017,0:03:30.720
I moved into a single large room[br]in a cheap bohemian district of Delhi,

0:03:30.744,0:03:32.058
with a small team.

0:03:32.402,0:03:35.376
And there, I set up[br]a new kind of publishing house.

0:03:36.355,0:03:39.765
A new kind of publishing house[br]needs a new kind of reader

0:03:39.789,0:03:41.322
and a new kind of book.

0:03:42.218,0:03:45.138
And so I asked myself,[br]"What would this new reader want?

0:03:45.162,0:03:48.956
Would they prize urgency, relevance,

0:03:48.980,0:03:51.258
timeliness, directness --

0:03:51.282,0:03:54.958
the very qualities they seem to want[br]from their online services,

0:03:54.982,0:03:58.120
indeed, the qualities they seem[br]to want from life today?"

0:03:59.149,0:04:01.783
I knew that my readers[br]were always on the go.

0:04:01.807,0:04:04.728
I'd have to fit into[br]their lifestyle and schedules.

0:04:04.752,0:04:07.810
Would they actually want to read[br]a 200-page book?

0:04:07.834,0:04:10.947
Or would they want something[br]a little bit more digestible?

0:04:11.676,0:04:14.652
Indians are incredibly value-conscious,

0:04:14.676,0:04:17.220
especially when it comes[br]to their online reading.

0:04:17.244,0:04:20.636
I knew I had to give them[br]books under a dollar.

0:04:21.735,0:04:25.167
And so my company was formed,[br]and it was born.

0:04:25.191,0:04:31.426
It was a platform where we created a list[br]of stories designed for the smartphone,

0:04:31.450,0:04:35.625
but it also allowed amateur writers[br]to upload their own stories,

0:04:35.649,0:04:38.220
so they could be showcased[br]along with the very writers

0:04:38.244,0:04:39.974
they read and admired.

0:04:39.998,0:04:44.506
And we could also enter into[br]other people's digital platforms.

0:04:44.999,0:04:46.785
So, imagine this:

0:04:46.809,0:04:50.173
imagine you're a receptionist,[br]you've had a long day at work,

0:04:50.197,0:04:52.644
you book your cab[br]in your ride-hailing app,

0:04:52.668,0:04:54.007
it shows up,

0:04:54.031,0:04:56.911
and you get into your car,[br]and you lie back on your seat,

0:04:56.935,0:04:59.101
and you put on your app.

0:04:59.125,0:05:03.187
And you find a set of stories[br]waiting for you, timed to your journey.

0:05:04.347,0:05:06.514
Imagine you're a gay young woman,

0:05:06.538,0:05:10.842
in a relatively conservative city[br]like Lucknow, which lies near Delhi.

0:05:11.300,0:05:14.022
There's no way your parents[br]know about your sexuality.

0:05:14.046,0:05:15.912
They'd completely freak out.

0:05:16.403,0:05:22.315
Would you like lesbian love stories[br]written in Hindi, priced under a dollar,

0:05:22.339,0:05:24.728
to be read in the privacy of your phone?

0:05:25.244,0:05:27.855
And could I match readers

0:05:27.879,0:05:32.189
to the events that were taking place[br]around them in real time?

0:05:32.982,0:05:37.156
So we published biographies[br]of very famous politicians

0:05:37.180,0:05:39.941
after they won big elections.

0:05:40.633,0:05:44.188
When the supreme court[br]decriminalized homosexuality,

0:05:44.212,0:05:47.959
an LGBTQ collection was waiting[br]on our home page.

0:05:48.482,0:05:53.591
And when India's Toni Morrison,[br]the great writer Mahasweta Devi died,

0:05:53.615,0:05:57.460
our readers found a short story by her[br]as soon as news hit.

0:05:58.046,0:06:02.807
The idea was to be relevant[br]to every moment of a reader's life.

0:06:03.823,0:06:05.157
Who are our readers?

0:06:05.562,0:06:08.657
They're mostly young men[br]under the age of 30.

0:06:08.681,0:06:10.665
There's someone like Salil,

0:06:10.689,0:06:13.768
who lives in a city where[br]there isn't a modern bookshop.

0:06:13.792,0:06:16.525
And he comes to our app almost every day.

0:06:16.852,0:06:18.678
There's someone like Manoj,

0:06:18.702,0:06:21.894
who mostly reads us[br]during the long commute back home.

0:06:22.266,0:06:25.861
And there's someone like Ahmed,[br]who loves our nonfiction

0:06:25.885,0:06:29.847
that he can read in a single sitting,[br]and that's priced very low.

0:06:30.831,0:06:33.832
Imagine if you're like a young, techie boy

0:06:33.856,0:06:38.187
in India's Silicon Valley[br]city of Bangalore.

0:06:39.031,0:06:41.578
And one day, you get[br]an in-app notification

0:06:41.602,0:06:45.053
and it says that your favorite actress[br]has written a sexy short story

0:06:45.077,0:06:46.672
and it's waiting for you.

0:06:46.696,0:06:48.768
That's how we launched Juggernaut.

0:06:48.792,0:06:53.188
We got a very famous ex-adult star,[br]called Sunny Leone.

0:06:53.212,0:06:56.347
She's India's most Googled[br]person, as it happens.

0:06:56.371,0:07:00.395
And we got her to write us[br]a collection of sexy short stories

0:07:00.419,0:07:02.958
that we published every night for a week.

0:07:02.982,0:07:04.410
And it was a sensation.

0:07:04.434,0:07:08.034
I mean, no one could believe[br]that we'd asked Sunny Leone to write.

0:07:08.466,0:07:09.626
But she did,

0:07:09.650,0:07:12.212
and she proved everyone wrong,

0:07:12.236,0:07:14.577
and she found this immense readership.

0:07:15.084,0:07:20.704
And just as we've redefined[br]what a book is and how a reader behaves,

0:07:20.728,0:07:23.204
we're rethinking who an author is.

0:07:23.228,0:07:24.881
In our amateur writing platform,

0:07:24.905,0:07:27.915
we have writers that range[br]from teenagers to housewives.

0:07:28.315,0:07:30.397
And they're writing all kinds of things.

0:07:30.421,0:07:35.863
It starts as small as a poem,[br]an essay, a single short story ...

0:07:36.292,0:07:39.739
Fifty percent of them are returning[br]to the app to write again.

0:07:40.514,0:07:41.999
Take someone like Neeraj.

0:07:42.024,0:07:47.028
He's a middle-aged executive,[br]wife, two kids, a good job.

0:07:47.053,0:07:48.815
And Neeraj loves to read.

0:07:48.839,0:07:51.673
But every time Neeraj read[br]a book that he loved,

0:07:51.697,0:07:53.871
he was also filled with regret.

0:07:53.895,0:07:56.505
He wondered to himself[br]if he could write, too.

0:07:56.529,0:07:58.974
He was convinced[br]he had stories in his mind.

0:07:59.450,0:08:04.410
But time and real life had happened,[br]and he couldn't really manage it.

0:08:04.434,0:08:07.648
And then he heard about[br]the Juggernaut writer's platform.

0:08:07.672,0:08:11.522
And what he loved about it[br]was that he felt this was a place

0:08:11.546,0:08:14.612
where he could stand[br]head and shoulders, equally,

0:08:14.637,0:08:17.141
with the very writers[br]that he most admired.

0:08:17.165,0:08:18.831
And so he began to write.

0:08:19.252,0:08:23.014
And he snatched[br]a minute here, an hour there,

0:08:23.038,0:08:25.252
in between flights in airports,

0:08:25.276,0:08:28.240
late at night, when he had[br]a little bit of time on his hands.

0:08:28.867,0:08:31.184
And he wrote this[br]extraordinary story for us.

0:08:31.208,0:08:34.033
He wrote a story[br]about a family of assassins

0:08:34.057,0:08:37.057
who lived in the winding[br]lanes of Old Delhi.

0:08:37.371,0:08:40.251
We loved it, it was so fresh and original.

0:08:40.275,0:08:44.712
And before Neeraj knew it,[br]he'd not only scored a film deal

0:08:44.736,0:08:48.011
but also a second contract[br]to write another story.

0:08:48.323,0:08:52.190
Neeraj's story is one of the most read[br]stories on our app.

0:08:53.619,0:08:56.135
My journey is very, very young.

0:08:56.159,0:08:59.911
We're a two-year-old company,[br]and we have a long way to go.

0:09:00.984,0:09:04.004
But we already, and we will[br]by the end of this year,

0:09:04.029,0:09:07.984
have about half a million stories,[br]many priced at under a dollar.

0:09:09.159,0:09:11.935
Most of our readers love reading

0:09:11.959,0:09:15.093
and trying out authors[br]they've never, ever heard of before.

0:09:15.117,0:09:17.577
Thirty percent of our home page reads

0:09:17.601,0:09:21.010
comes out of the writing[br]that comes from our writer's platform.

0:09:22.210,0:09:24.321
By being everywhere,

0:09:24.345,0:09:26.925
by being accessible and relevant,

0:09:27.734,0:09:30.514
I hope to make reading a daily habit,

0:09:30.538,0:09:33.761
as easy and effortless[br]as checking your email,

0:09:34.800,0:09:36.490
as booking a ticket online

0:09:36.514,0:09:38.101
or ordering your groceries.

0:09:38.800,0:09:40.395
And as for me,

0:09:40.419,0:09:44.516
I've discovered that as I entered[br]the six-inch world of the smartphone,

0:09:44.540,0:09:47.006
my own world just got very, very big.

0:09:48.484,0:09:49.682
Thank you.

0:09:49.706,0:09:53.586
(Applause)