night. “They are like woollen blankets,” says author K Hari Kumar. “They keep you warm on rainy nights.” With his latest book, India’s Most Haunted: Tales of Terrifying places (HarperCollins), Mumbai-based Kumar wishes to reaffirm his place as one of India’s top horror writers. With a collection of fifty short stories, he hopes to frighten the socks off the reader by keeping it ‘simple so that everyone can understand’. “One need not tharoorify their manuscript,” he notes, setting the tone for the interview.