Memoir: Hollywood producer Priyanka Mattoo traces her journey from Kashmir to Los Angeles

“You have a moustache,” said a Canadian named Paul when I was twelve.

“You have no chin,” I told him.

“So what?” His lip wobbled. “It’s my jaw. I don’t have a well-defined jaw,” he murmured.

When I got home from school, I reflected. Did I feel bad about what I’d said? I didn’t. He shouldn’t have been critiquing my face in the first place. My mother agreed.

“But you only get one face,” she said, smearing a homemade honey mask on hers. I dodged her sticky hands as she reached for mine next. She sighed. “Just, please, take care of it.”

I scowled. Ever since Brad F had bullied me into shaving my legs that one time, beauty, for me, was something other people wanted me to perform. And because other people wanted me to do it, I had very little interest.

In my estimation, my mother was the most beautiful person I had ever known, and would ever know, and she seemed to get by with a good personality and some eyeliner. A trained botanist, she was forever treating her skin with a homemade potion: turmeric for redness, honey for breakouts, yoghurt or fruit acid peels. But beyond simple upkeep, there were assets – things that made her stand out, beauty-wise – that I...

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