Tia Bajpai is back haunting the audiences. Yes, this Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 finalist first entered the big screen space with Vikram Bhatt’s Haunted and now she is playing a possessed lady in 1920-Evil Returns.”

“Since 1920 was already a hit the responsibility was on us to make sure that the sequel was better,” says Tia.

She continues, “Certain accidental mistakes by my and Vidya Malvade’s characters lead to the death of Sagar Saikia in our past lives who returns and possesses me. Aftab Shivdasani plays my love interest and brother of Vidya. He goes out of the way to protect me.”

So how was it playing horror? “It was fun for once I was not bothered about my makeup and lipstick. I was pensive at first but later I started enjoying scaring others. Here I wish to give credit to Aftab for he told me to start acting like men to bring out the ghost more with élan. The Y chromosome species generally are broader while I am quite tiny. Hence I started observing guys on the set and things became easy.”

On comparing Haunted with 1920, she says, “Both films are different love stories. There Adhyayan Suman goes back into the past to protect me.”

She further adds that, “Period horrors are better for they have lot more visual delights and music compared to scary flicks which are set in today’s times which end up just being vanilla horrors.”

Although Tia has not seen any ghosts in real life, she heard many such tales from her grandfather. “I seriously believe it is better to avoid interfering with the afterlife for it will get very difficult for us only. No wonder I never played planchet when I was a kid or in college.”

Tia who had made a big issue of certain bold scenes in her previous film Lanka (also produced by Vikram Bhatt) has kissing and love making sequences here as well. “They were needed here as part of the narrative. I was quite nervous about it, so kept giggling through as I did not know what to do. But luckily Aftab was a thorough professional and so was Bhushan sir (director Bhusan Patel), and it was shot well.”

In closing, Tia brushes aside rumours that she and Vikram Bhatt were in a relationship. “He is my mentor and much more senior to me. Just because we work together in three projects does not mean we are linked. Several producers repeat their male stars but nobody accuses them of anything.”