The Quiet Revolution to Reawaken India’s Reading Soul

During these times of algorithmic distractions, endless scrolling, and digital noise, there is a quiet revolution unfolding, one page, one conversation, one human encounter at a time. At the epicenter of one such movement stands Ajay Jain, founder of Kunzum, a collection of independent bookstores in India that are redefining what it means to read, to gather, and to be human in the hyper-digital 21st century.

A Childhood Anchored in Books

For Jain, books have always been more than a pastime. “I belong to a generation where books were the only form of leisure, entertainment and education,” he reflects. Growing up in 1970s and 80s India, where state-controlled TV and radio offered little variety and computers were non-existent, reading was woven into daily life as naturally as eating or sleeping.

But as India and the world hurtled into the digital age, Jain watched technology offer incredible conveniences while slowly eroding something precious. “Everything was reduced to bits and bytes,” he observes. “And that’s where it struck me: I had to cut back on digital, strike the right balance with the analog world.”

This personal reckoning became the seed for something much larger.

From Rolling Stone to Literary Architect

Jain’s professional journey has been nomadic—engineer, journalist, photographer, entrepreneur, author. “Just because we’re good at something doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it all our lives,” he says. This willingness to reinvent led him to launch Kunzum—a space he calls “Face-to-Facebook for travelers”—long before bookstore cafés became trendy.

Originally a tiny 500-square-foot travel café displaying his photography, Kunzum soon evolved into a vibrant stage for poetry slams, music performances, author talks, debates, and spontaneous conversations. The community, not the business plan, dictated its growth.

“We cannot match the ability and power of the ‘crowd’ to become a community of communities,” Jain says. That organic evolution remains central to Kunzum’s DNA even today.

Resisting the Lure of Hyper-Scale

In an age where many entrepreneurs chase scale, efficiency, and venture capital, Jain has taken a radically different route. “On day zero, I dreamt of 100 stores. But now, I’m considering consolidating to a single flagship store in Delhi’s GK2,” he reveals.

The reason? Protecting the soul of Kunzum. “Expansion often pulls you away from the culture and vision that built the brand,” he explains. Jain resists calls to digitize the in-store experience with apps, augmented reality, or aggressive e-commerce platforms. “We stay in the slow lane,” he says unapologetically.

This analog-first philosophy has become Kunzum’s greatest strength. “We offer what digital cannot: discovery. Of books, of people, of culture, of art. Digital might be a drug, but so is face-to-face.”

Books as Medicine for the Soul

In a world grappling with rising mental health challenges, Jain passionately believes that reading can serve as an antidote to many of modern life’s anxieties. “We’re not talking enough about the joy of reading,” he laments. “It’s not about direct benefits; it’s about the sheer pleasure it brings.”

For him, reading is not merely consumption—it’s nourishment. “When I hear about mental health challenges today, I believe we need to reconnect with nature, disconnect from technology, and return to simple joys—reading a book, writing, or even a communal dinner. These activities satisfy us in ways technology never can.”

A Graduate Program in Reading

In typical Kunzum fashion, Jain has introduced a playful yet powerful initiative—a “graduate program in reading.” Readers earn self-reported certifications as they complete reading milestones, progressing from certificates to diplomas, even up to doctorates. “It’s a self-scoring system because the true beneficiary is you,” Jain explains.

Gentle nudges keep readers engaged, while periodic celebrations foster a community bound not by competition, but by shared love for books.

India’s Literary Tipping Point?

Jain sees bookstores like Kunzum as crucial cultural stabilizers amid India’s rapid social and technological transformation. “We are not building an ecosystem conducive to publishing,” he observes. “There’s a lot of production but not enough focus on the blockbusters or the truly impactful stories.”

But change is brewing. “When people experience Kunzum, they begin to question their commitment to art, culture and stories. We need thousands of spaces like Kunzum,” Jain emphasizes. “If we can inspire more entrepreneurs to create these oases, that’s when we’ll see a real movement.”

The Power of Small Encounters

While much of Kunzum’s magic lies in its events and books, it’s the unplanned human interactions that leave Jain most inspired. “The joy when one goes back with a book they were not even aware of, or the telephone number of someone they hit it off with, has no comparison,” he shares.

At Kunzum, strangers strike up conversations, authors share vulnerable stories, and readers rediscover the lost art of lingering. This is not commerce—it’s community. It’s humanity.

A Manifesto for the Movement

If he could leave one book at every Kunzum location as a personal manifesto, Jain offers two choices: Fredrik Backman’s My Friends and Rutger Bregman’s Moral Ambition. Both reflect his deep belief that our world’s most urgent challenges can only be solved by those with the courage and the privilege to step off the treadmill of endless accumulation and start building something real, lasting, and human.

Joining the Global Reawakening

Jain’s mission with Kunzum is not an isolated experiment—it’s part of a much larger global reawakening. Across the world, from tiny bookstores in America to cultural hubs in Europe, people are rediscovering books as both refuge and revolution.

In a time when algorithms decide what we see and digital fatigue consumes our attention, spaces like Kunzum remind us of something beautifully simple: the transformative power of real stories, shared spaces, and human connection.

As Ajay Jain puts it: “My happiness, my calm cannot be sought in isolation; only if society changes through spaces like Kunzum can I evolve personally.”

In that sense, Kunzum isn’t just a bookstore. It’s an invitation—to all of us—to become part of a new movement, one book, one conversation, one soul at a time.

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