After watching Snow White, I wanted to be a princess who won’t fancy an apple, no matter how red and ripe it is. My mother was the evil queen. At thirteen, I longed for a world with more freedom and no mother.

On my fourteenth birthday, Baba gave me a heart-shaped locket. It had a glinting ruby in the middle. It was my lucky charm. I took it everywhere with me. Yet, I could never convince luck. It proved to be as stubborn as my mother.

At fifteen, I realized it was Baba who wrote the scripts, mother only read them out. I didn’t like the character I was given: Get married, have kids, and live unhappily ever after.

When I turned sixteen. I wrote a new story—the Queen was not evil, just a bad actor with a poor script, and the princess planned a perfect escape.