From being a simple girl from the Swat Valley once called 'the Switzerland of Pakistan' to taking on the mighty Taliban and subsequently being bestowed with the Nobel Peace Prize - the life of Malala Yousafzai is nothing less than a fairytale story. When Malala was born in 1997 the Swat Valley was more or less peaceful.

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On the fateful morning of October 9, 2012, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was on her way from school when she was shot by the Taliban. Seated on a bus heading home from school, Malala was talking with her friends. Two members of the Taliban stopped the bus. A masked gunman boarded the school bus and asked, "Who is Malala?" He fired three shots on the left side of her head.

Her crime, Malala had spoken up for the right of girls to be educated, something that the Taliban was dead against. The world reacted in horror, but after weeks in intensive care, Malala Yousafzai survived to tell her tale to the world and challenge the Taliban. Her life had changed forever at the age of 15.

"I woke up 10 days later in a hospital in Birmingham, England. The doctors and nurses told me about the attack and that people around the world were praying for my recovery," Malala recalls. After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, she joined her family in their new home in the UK.

"I loved school. But everything changed when the Taliban took control of our town in Swat Valley," Malala says. Taliban had banned many things like owning a television and playing music and gave harsh punishments to those who defied their orders. And they said girls could no longer go to school.

After she got a new lease of life, along with her father she later established the Malala Fund, a charity dedicated to giving every girl an opportunity to achieve a future she chooses. She received the Nobel Peace Prize for her initiative in December 2014 and became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.