cypress: Unable to add cypress on an existing project in Windows 10

Unable to install cypress on an existing react project on Windows 10 machine. Here is the error:

> cypress@6.2.0 postinstall C:\Users\ShreyaJ\Desktop\generic-user-portal\node_modules\cypress
> node index.js --exec install

C:\Users\ShreyaJ\Desktop\generic-user-portal\node_modules\cypress\node_modules\fs-extra\lib\mkdirs\make-dir.js:85
      } catch {
              ^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token {
    at createScript (vm.js:80:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:139:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:616:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:596:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\ShreyaJ\Desktop\generic-user-portal\node_modules\cypress\node_modules\fs-extra\lib\mkdirs\index.js:3:44)
    at Module._compile (module.js:652:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:49


npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the cypress@6.2.0 postinstall script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\ShreyaJ\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2020-12-22T20_41_20_421Z-debug.log

Any help would be appreciated. Able to install cypress in a fresh new project on the same machine.