Ishita Batra

Heeyyyyy~! My name is Ishita Batra, but most people call me Ish. I’m a Grade 10 student at Bal Bharati Public School, Pitampura, New Delhi. Growing up, storytelling was my brother's thing. While everyone else was entertained by him, I sat in the corner wondering if the standards were just low. (Oh, they were lowwww.)

Like any younger sibling with bruised pride, I decided to compete. If everyone wanted stories, I would write better ones with more plot twists and fewer bad punchlines. Slowly, literature became my home. My childhood revolved around Arthur Conan Doyle, Saki, Ruskin Bond, and Roald Dahl, while authors like Freida McFadden and Peter Swanson later fueled my obsession with suspense.

Writing was never just a choice for me, it was part of school curriculum. In third grade, I got so immersed in an exam essay about a girl riding a wild elephant that I completely lost track of reality. I wrote with such frantic passion that I literally left a whole page of the exam question paper unanswered—a legendary academic disaster my parents never let me forget.

The real turning point came in seventh grade when my English teacher finally motivated me enough to write my first book. So I did. 
What started as a story about nightmares and experiences turned into The Scarlet Void and The Ninth Draft, both of which ended up landing Gold Star recognition at the NYAF. I was even invited as a panelist author at the New Delhi World Book Fair—a pretty surreal milestone for someone who initially started writing just to outshine her brother. (He still acts unimpressed, tbh.)



At the end of the day, we all just need to remember one thing— "Art is how we survive.”

P.S. Check out my blogs on Medium.