Pakistan's teenaged human rights activist, Malala Yousafzai, is more afraid of ghosts than she is of the Taliban, whose gunmen shot her in the head and neck last year for speaking out in favour of girl's education in the Swat Valley.
"Well, if I speak truly, I am a little bit scared of ghosts. We people call it pidiaan... I am afraid of them when it gets dark," said the 16-year-old, who was in the race for this year's Nobel peace prize for standing up to the Taliban.
In an interview with NDTV's group editor Barkha Dutt in Britain, where she was brought for treatment after the attack and has been staying since, Malala said she was "not at all" scared of the Taliban.
Asked why the Taliban were opposed to girls' education, Malala said, "They are afraid of us. They are afraid of women. A woman is powerful but when she gets education she becomes more powerful. They do not want women to take part in society, in the development of a society. They think that the only job of women is to cook food, to serve the family, to give birth to children, to feed them."
Malala reiterated that her ambition was to lead her country. "Yes, I want to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. And I will work on education and health and for the prosperity of the country. And I will also work on good relations with India," she said.
The activist said after spending nine days in a Birmingham hospital receiving treatment, she asked her father to bring her a physics book "because numericals and mathematical questions are really tough".
"At that time I was not worried. I was thinking that I am going back to Pakistan, I am going back to Swat. And I was not even thinking that they can shoot me again," she said. Malala has enrolled in a school in Birmingham.
Despite the global attention, Malala said she was still an "ordinary girl". "I am the same Malala... speaking about women's rights and girls' education is my duty."
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