At The Hindu friend of the Gutter Aditi Sen and Alok Sharma write about Dracula’s roots in Indian literature and comics. “The vampire — that undead creature of the night, half-human, half-bat, thriving on blood — every culture has one in its lore. And this explains the universal appeal of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But India has a particular connection with the Count from the Gothic horror tale of 1897.”