This panel brings together practitioners who work with regional languages and their aesthetic forms and themes, address global discourse and contexts. What then does it mean to ‘act’, to ‘think’ as either local or global artists today? As writers and performance makers, is the distinction between thinking and acting one that needs closer examination? In a country such as India where regional languages are used as tools for political divisiveness, can we re-imagine language as a mode for dissent against a nationalistic narrative?