I am writing about stories in general, and one particular story. I’ve been reading ever since I was a kid, and I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t reading. I distinctly remember, during a vacation to Kashmir, we were in a long 4 hour car ride, and so my mom gave me a book to read for when we were in the car. It was called Malory Towers, by Enid Blyton. I thought then that it looked boring and I did not want to read about a group of girls in boarding school. But then I started, and before I knew it the car ride was over, and I was done with the book. That was my introduction to the Enid Blyton universe. From then on, there was no going back. I finished the entire Malory towers series in that 1 vacation, and I fell in love with all the characters. I realised the hidden beauty in living in a boarding school, and I started wanting to go to a boarding school in the suburbs of England too. From Darrell Rivers to Gwen to Alicia, I found that I could relate to each and every character in some form or the other. I too wanted to drink lemonade and eat candied oranges, have ginger beer in the night while sneaking out and steal butter cookies from the cafeteria. I loved reading about the description of the school, with the 4 big towers and the cliffs that were there on one end of the campus. There were huge fields, and even a stable with horses for the girls to ride. That was another part that I was fascinated by. I love animals, and I really wanted to go horse riding or take care of horses in my school as well. To this day, I wonder what would have happened and how I would have turned out if I had had the courage to actually go to boarding school at that age.
