Unlike some previous years, the festival managed to stay away from any controversy and distinguished participants like Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who attended several sessions, faced questions only on books politics, not the investigation into the murder of his wife Sunanda Pushkar .

As usual, Bollywood made its presence felt at the festival as prominent personalities Naseeruddin Shah, Waheeda Rahman, Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi participated in several sessions. In one memorable session, Shabana, daughter of iconic poet Kaifi Azmi, teamed with Salima Hashmi, daughter of equally iconic Faiz Ahmed Faiz, to discussed their illustrious fathers.

Literary luminaries like father of modern travel writing Paul Theroux, 2013 Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, Samuel Johnson Prize winner and author of “The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher” Kate Summerscale, Pakistani painter, writer and academic Hashmi, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist Kai Bird and the author of “Family Life” Akhil Sharma also attended the festival.

The festival as usual drew huge crowds, especially in its last two days, but sometimes this led to swamping of available space - especially where the venue was smaller - and created near chaos. It was a moot point how much some of people thronging the venue attended even one session or were interested in one, given that many walked out midway and the organisers must give this aspect some thought.