Getting it Write

X-Rated:Faramerz Dabhoiwala, touted as the "Stephen Hawking of sex", had the crowd lapping up an extraordinarily and "dirty" account of the history of what he calls "the sexual revolution". Dabhoiwala, a Parsi who teaches history at the University of Oxford, enthralled the audience with witty revelations — from talking about the first woman to have been convicted for adultery to the foundation of first sex clubs for men in Europe.

The R Word:Despite India-born British artist Anish Kapoor's conspicuous absence from the panel of "What is a Classic" session, the conversation with Alif Batuman, Tom Holland, Christopher Ricks, Ashok Vajpeyi and Homi Bhabha turned out to be lively. One hilarious moment had Holland, who was asked to give his favourite contemporary classic, asking, "Can I say the Rushdie word?". That instantly had the audience in splits.

DSC prize:The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2013, announced by Kabir Bedi at Diggi Palace, has been awarded to Jeet Thayil for Narcopolis. "What's in my mind right now is, 'finally!'. I've been shortlisted four times but never won," said Thayil. Others on the list were Jamil Ahmad (The Wandering Falcon), Tahmima Anam (The Good Muslim), Amitav Ghosh (River of Smoke), Mohammed Hanif (Our Lady of Alice Bhatti), and Uday Prakash (The Walls of Delhi, translated by Jason Grunebaum). 

Radio Reads:Listeners in 35 Indian cities and along border towns in Pakistan have heard Neelesh Misra's storytelling on the radio show, Yaadon Ka Idiot Box. Now, the stories have been made into a series of books and the first two volumes of Neelesh Misra ka Yaad Sheher were launched at JLF on Thursday.

What's on today

'Republic of Ideas':Patrick French, Ashis Nandy, Ashutosh, Tarun Tejpal and Richard Sorabji in conversation with Urvashi Butalia (10 am–11 am)

'India: an Unbound Breakout Nation In spite of the Gods?': Ruchir Sharma and Edward Luce in conversation with Gurcharan Das (11:15am-12:15pm)

... contd.

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