What was your favorite subject in school?

I was never the model student nor did I have any favorite subject in school. In fact, my school days are mostly a blur of painful memories. I hated going to school. The sight of children in uniforms, their bags weighed down with books, reminds me of lines of prisoners. The rigid routine, the never-ending rulesit felt like a constant battle.

As an Army officer’s child, I moved around a lot. In my first ten years, I attended five different schools. The constant uprooting meant I never had the chance to settle, and coupled with the teachers I encounteredsome downright terriblemy school years became something I wished to forget.

But there was one thing that saved me: my love for reading. While I may not have thrived in the classroom, the world of books was my escape. Every new academic year, I would tear through my English reader as soon as the books arrived, devouring each story before the rest of the class even had a chance. Libraries were my second home.

I started with the innocent tales of Noddy and Enid Blyton, then graduated to more adventurous reads like The Hardy Boys. But I didn’t stop there. I moved on to the gripping works of John le Carré, Alistair Maclean, and Dick Francisauthors whose words opened my eyes to a world far beyond the confines of my school walls.

In a way, those books gave me an education of their own. They taught me more about human nature, and the power of storytelling, than any classroom ever did. And while school felt like a prison, the pages of those books were my ticket to freedom.