The dim glow of her laptop screen was the only light in Ishani Mehra’s cramped Mumbai hostel room. It was past midnight, and the fan whirred lazily overhead, doing little to cut through the sticky April heat. At 22, Ishani was supposed to be studying for her finals, but instead, she was lost in Chapter 17 of her latest Wattpad story, Shadows of Obsession.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she stared at the description she’d just written of her villain: