I AM MALALA

I AM MALALA

When I stand in front of my window and look out, I see tall buildings, long roads full of vehicles
moving in orderly lines, neat green hedges and lawns, and tidy pavements to walk on. I close my eyes
and for a moment I am back in my valley – the high snow-topped mountains, green waving fields,
and fresh blue rivers – and my heart smiles when it looks at the people of Swat. My mind transports
me back to my school and there I am reunited with my friends and teachers. I meet my best friend
Moniba and we sit together, talking and joking as if I had never left.
Then I remember I am in Birmingham, England.
The day when everything changed was Tuesday, 9 October 2012. It wasn’t the best of days to start
with as it was the middle of school exams, though as a bookish girl, I didn’t mind them as much as
some of my classmates.
That morning we arrived in the narrow mud lane off Haji Baba Road in our usual procession of
brightly painted rickshaws, sputtering diesel fumes, each one crammed with five or six girls. Since
the time of the Taliban, our school has had no sign and the ornamented brass door in a white wall
across from the woodcutter’s yard gives no hint of what lies beyond.
For us girls that doorway was like a magical entrance to our special world. As we skipped
through, we cast off our headscarves like winds puffing away clouds to make way for the sun then
ran helter-skelter up the steps. At the top of the steps was an open courtyard with doors to all the
classrooms. We dumped our backpacks in our rooms and then gathered for morning assembly under the
sky, our backs to the mountains as we stood to attention. One girl commanded, ‘Assaan bash! ’ or
‘Stand at ease!’ and we clicked our heels and responded, ‘ Allah.’ Then she said, ‘ Hoo she yar!’ or
‘Attention!’ and we clicked our heels again. ‘Allah.’
My father founded the school before I was born and on the wall above us KHUSHAL
SCHOOL was painted proudly in red and white letters. We went to school six mornings a week and as
a fifteen-year-old in Year 9 my classes were spent chanting chemical equations or studying Urdu
grammar; writing stories in English with morals like ‘Haste makes waste’ or drawing diagrams of
blood circulation – most of my classmates wanted to be doctors. It’s hard to imagine that anyone
would see that as a threat. Yet, outside the door to the school lay not only the noise and craziness of
Mingora, the main city of Swat, but also those like the Taliban who think girls should not go to
school.
That morning had begun like any other, though a little later than usual. It was exam time so school
started at nine instead of eight, which was good as I don’t like getting up and can sleep through the
crows of the cocks and the prayer calls of the muezzin. First, my father would try to rouse me. ‘Time
to get up, Jani mun,’ he would say. This means ‘soulmate’ in Persian, and he always called me that at
the start of the day. ‘A few more minutes, Aba, please,’ I’d beg, then burrow deeper under the quilt.
Then my mother would come. ‘Pisho,’ she would call. This means ‘cat’ and is her name for me. At
this point I’d realize the time and shout, ‘Bhabi, I’m late!’ In our culture, every man is your ‘brother’
and every woman is your ‘sister’. That’s how we think of each other. When my father first brought his
wife to school, all the teachers referred to her as ‘my brother’s wife’ or Bhabi. That’s how it stayed
from then on. We all call her Bhabi now.