Lonely roads and windy nights, the tell-tale prickle on the back of your neck, the sensation of someone following you, but nothing when you turn around. Do we see you dismissing all of this and declaring that you don’t scare easily? Come then, oh brave one, and take a reading tour of some of India’s horror novels. With tales of witches and ghosts and hauntings, these macabre tales will test your determination to tread through these paths alone. With stories from the foothills of the Himalayas to the spooky mansions of Goa, live the horrors as you read them.

01

Afterlife: Ghost Stories From Goa

Jessica Faleiro

Savio Fonseca is throwing a get-together at his house in Goa for his 75th birthday, and the entire family is invited. When the electricity is suddenly cut off the night before the birthday party, everyone settles in to reminisce and swap stories. The stories, then, turn dark and horrific, with every member trying to scare the others. They involve a priest’s first exorcism, a college girl whose dare to spend a night in a haunted library takes a dark turn, ghosts who love children, and an uncle trying to contact the living from his grave. In the middle of this, there is another mystery cooking inside the house that is bound to change everything. Each short story in this collection is bound to send a chill up your spine.

Buy it here.

02

A Face In The Dark

Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond is here to turn your dreams into nightmares! In A Face In The Dark, we encounter a solitary school teacher who has an unpleasant encounter with faceless people, a ghost who stands outside a movie theatre and an author who lives with a ghost. This collection of 28 short stories will haunt you with ghosts, spirits, fairies and witches that come alive in the dark, and leave you paralysed with fear.

Buy it here.

03

The Other Side

Faraaz Kazi, Vivek Banerjee

A deranged lover wants his first love even after death, while somewhere else a honeymoon goes catastrophically wrong. There’s a story of a man who stitches parts of different women together to make his perfect woman, while elsewhere, a man enters a haunted mansion to win a bet. The Other Side is a collection of 13 horrific stories that will make you want to sleep with the lights on.

Buy it here.  

04

That Frequent Visitor: Every Face Has A Darker Side

K. Hari Kumar

When Shiuli Dutta arrives at Clifford Mansion, she comes across the ghost of Richard Baxter, who tells her the story of his incomplete life. The story attempts to answer why outsiders are forbidden to enter Vypeen Island after sunset, why Baxter and his wife disappeared and the story of a visitor who instils fear in the local fishermen. The ghost of Baxter is waiting for his revenge on those who wronged him, and he will not rest until then. That Frequent Visitor is a must-read for fans of horror and thrillers and is bound to keep you entertained.  

Buy it here.

05

The Mine

Arnab Ray

In a secluded mine of the Rajasthan desert, miners find an old temple buried deep within and adorned with creepy carvings of tortured women. Soon after, the miners are plagued with nightmares and start mutilating and killing themselves. To inspect the weird activities, five experts are called in. When an accident causes them to be trapped inside the mine, they discover that the real horror is yet to present itself. A gripping tale, The Mine will stay with you, forever.  

Buy it here.

06

The Face At The Window

Kiran Manral

Mrs McNally has retired as a schoolteacher and lives in her home near the Himalayas. She has secrets of her own, secrets that could prove dangerous for both her daughter and granddaughter. Mrs McNally is tormented by the secrets from her past, but that is nothing compared to a presence in the house that continues to haunt her. Will she ever be able to get rid of this unwanted entity in her house? This tale is unlike any other horror story you have read before, and yet will not stop till it scares the hell out of you.

Buy it here.

07

Darkness

Ratnakar Matkari, Vikrant Pande (Tr.)

Ratnakar Matkari is known for having pioneered the tales of the macabre in Marathi. In these stories, translated into English for the first time, you’ll find a boy who can prophesise the exact date of a person’s death; an old woman who learns to cheat death; a child with an invisible but dangerous friend; and a ghost who relives his suicide repeatedly. These dark and macabre tales will have you constantly looking over your shoulder.

Buy it here.

08

Maya’s New Husband

Neil D’Silva

A criminal is on the loose in suburban Mumbai, with people being snatched off the streets, never to be seen again. With such evil lurking around, Maya, a schoolteacher, is trying to get past the death of her husband, when she makes the acquaintance of Bhaskar, the art teacher at her school. Though Bhaskar exhibits weird and eccentric behaviour, he and Maya grow close and get married. It is only after their marriage that Maya begins to suspect Bhaskar’s true intentions. But what she discovers is beyond her imagination and haunts her for days to come. Neil D’Silva’s psychological horror is a tale unlike any other and is not a story for the faint-hearted.

Buy it here.

Prasanna Sawant

Prasanna Sawant

Prasanna is a human (probably) who makes stuff up for a living. When she's not sleeping or eating, you'll find her in the quietest corner of the library, devouring yet another hardbound book. She vastly prefers the imaginary world to the real one, but grudgingly emerges from her writing cave on occasion. If you do see her, it's best not to approach her before she's had her coffee.

She writes at The Curious Reader. You can read her articles here.