Raj Khatri at his Malad home. Pic/NIMESHâÂu00c2u0080Âu00c2u0088DAVE

As a teen studying at a Khandala boarding school, Raj Khatri was an ardent fan of Hardy Boys. Every week, he’d head to the school library to pick up a copy from the limited edition series, The Hardy Boys Casefiles, that explored mature, espionage-based themes. But he never read a single one. "It was to gaze lovingly at the cover," he laughs. "If you remember, the cover always carried an action shot. Sometimes, it was of a car chase or a person fleeing an explosion or a man hanging precariously from a bridge. They [covers] had a dynamic, kinetic energy that I loved." He would then return to the dorm, sit with a paper and recreate the cover of the week in his notebook.