Basma Beauty
When Basma Hameed was around 3 years old, her brother proposed a game: “Let’s surprise mom and dad, and cook them something!” He heated some oil, took out some meat from the freezer and flung it in the pan. “A fire started and he got nervous. He didn’t know what to do.” He tried to carry the pan over to the sink but in the midst of the commotion, tripped on his baby sister. The oil spilled and severely burned half her face.
“My parents panicked anybody with a child would.” In the years that followed, they tried everything to help, ferrying her around to a slew of specialists. “Every time I had a surgery, I thought, ‘When they take off the bandages, I’ll go back to normal.’ It was always this excitement followed by disappointment, because it wasn’t realistic. A scar is a scar.”