A Khar-based gaming start-up has launched India's first all-female Esports and lifestyle team. The Khar office of Global Esport, a gaming start-up run by Mohit Israney and Dr. Rushindra Sinha, is a picture of testosterone as men work furiously behind monitors. The skewed gender ratio is hardly a problem for Apollonia Hannah Hinds. "All my life, I have slayed men," she laughs. With her beachy curls and booming voice, Hinds, 25, is unmissable. Born in England, raised in Singapore, she is the captain of GEms (Global Esports' Mythic Stones), the country's first all-women esports team, launched by Sinha and Israney to challenge the gender divide.

Esports refers to a competition that uses video games and is held as an organised, multiplayer video game competition, either between professional players, individually or as teams.

Hinds was working as a caricaturist and gamer in Singapore when the team reached out to her with an opportunity. "It was serendipitous because I was looking to move to Mumbai," she says. The unusual choice of career runs in the family. Her father is a comic artist, and mother, a lawyer-turned-gamer. "I tried my hand at online gaming at age nine, with games like MapleSEA, AuditionSEA, and Blackshot. It was the League of Legends that made me take gaming seriously," she says. Back in Singapore, Hinds was the captain of Girlaxy, an all-girl Esports team. "Thanks to my mother, I was aware of all the drama that accompanies a game. Banter is part of it. But, it borders on harassment when you reveal that you are a woman. Insults about appearance and name-calling are common. Many women get turned off by the hostility and end up quitting altogether," she says. Her love for the game overpowered the pettiness that it comes with. When the Singapore team launched an ad-hoc India chapter titled Girlaxy India, Hinds joined in. It was acquired by Global Esports last year and rebranded GEms. GEms made their first public appearance at DreamHack, Delhi last December.