This wasn't a carnival, but came close to it in spirit - especially when Obelix and Asterix greeted visitors in person. Fictional characters huddled together were engaged in intense conversations. Captain James Hook, the legendary 18th century navigator, Disney's Anastasia and Lady Loki from Marvel Comics squatted on the floor, while the wilder and more ferocious animal-like creatures - half of whom seemed to have landed from some alien planet - walked around stealthily sporting placards which read - "free hugs".

The Sahitya Akademi - in the eye of a storm in India as writers return awards protesting against what they see as a growing climate of intolerance back home in India - would have been happy with the hugs. An impressive stall invited people to browse through books at the Frankfurt Book Fair at the Festalle fair grounds.

Spread over 96,000 square metres, the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the most political and yet most youthful event held every year in Frankfurt, wound up on October 18. The five-day fair, into its 67th year, was a blockbuster, intellectual event.

Not without reason. Hailed as the international publishing industry's largest trade fair in the world, it did some serious business this year. A total of 7,200 exhibitors from 104 countries, 9,900 journalists, 1,400 accredited bloggers, an average footfall of 2,75,791 general visitors on the weekend and 1,40,474 on the first three trade-visitor days accounted for its grand success.

India, which has been taking part in the fair for the past 43 years, was among the participants. It has twice been a guest of honour - in 1986 and 2005.

"The National Book Trust (NBT), India, under the ministry of human resource development, is mandated to promote Indian publishing abroad," said Kanchan Wanchoo Sharma, assistant director, NBT. For the past few years, NBT and Sahitya Akademi have been showcasing their collections together in a single stall that sees a good number of visitors, mostly curious about Indian regional literature, yoga, ayurveda and spiritualism.

This year there were about 70 Indian publishers and booksellers of which 25 related to children's literature - a very successful genre at the book fair - while the rest covered digital media, niche publishers and regional publishers. Karadi Tales, Niyogi Books, Ananda Publishers Private Limited, Mapin Publishing, were all well represented.

"Publishers of some standing wouldn't want to miss this fair despite the fact that participation is expensive as the daily average expense amounts to nearly Rs 1 lakh," said S.K. Khurana, editor-publisher of All About Book Publishing, a bi-monthly magazine on the book publishing industry of India.

There was another reason Indian participants were a trifle excited. Frankfurter Buchmesse serves as a prelude to the World Book Fair which is to be held in New Delhi's Pragati Maidan in January 2016. "It is the largest international book fair in the Afro-Asian region which will see the participation of 1,200 publishers and booksellers across an area of 40,000 square metres. China will be the guest of honour," said Sharma with pride. "So we also use this platform to advertise our book fair in India."

Indonesia, which was the guest of honour this year at Frankfurt, had a large representation in all spheres under the theme "Words, images, myths, movements and Indonesia: 17,000 islands of imagination".

The largest international trading hub for content worldwide, Frankfurt Book Fair is the most significant business-to-business network in its field, hosting interactions among all involved: the players in the international rights trade; providers of technology and content; traditional publishers and start-ups. At the same time, it also connects everyone who has anything to do with content, literature and storytelling, Katja Böhne, in charge of marketing and communications at the fair, pointed out.

"We call it the book fair but over the years it has transformed into a content fair," Böhne said. "Anyone who produces, processes, distributes or markets content is part of this fair."

Frankfurter Buchmesse is one place where the serious and comic, political and social, flow into one another. If Salman Rushdie set the tone at the outset in his inimitable style by delivering the inaugural lecture on freedom of speech and expression, Juergen Boos, director of the book fair, brought it to a close with his observation, "There is no superior idea and no superior culture. Rather, it is our task to engender respect, one for the other."

But the recurrent theme of the fair was understandably Border Lines with the migrant crisis looming large in the European mind. "The world is in turmoil," Heinrich Riethmüller, head of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, said in his opening speech. "What we see today in Europe - as expressed most clearly in the form of hundreds of thousands of refugees - is the battle between the religions, the imbalance between rich and poor, between those persecuted and those who are safe, those who are imprisoned and those who are free... They come to Europe in search of freedom, peace and the right to live a dignified life." The world, he added, was in need of tolerance. "In this realm, books make a central contribution. Literature opens the door to language, knowledge and culture. Literature makes understanding possible - between people, nations and natures."

The venues and exhibition areas for new communities added to the overall dynamic. Bloggers on books, food and do-it-yourself trends and self-publishing authors held their own events, enhancing the world of publishing both as creators and consumers.

And, of course, it wasn't just about books either. Strategically located back massage corners, wine hangouts, park-like settings for tired souls and the new international Gourmet Gallery lent variety, as did stalls handing out wool that could be knitted by visitors into caps or scarves meant to be given away to the refugees.

As the curtain came down on the last day, social and business culture, comic and the serious went hand in hand. The Guest Scroll, an art object specially created for the Frankfurt Book Fair, was handed over to Flanders & the Netherlands, guest of honour 2016. Next year, the grounds will have another story to tell.