As late as it is, this post is dedicated to all those who had lost all their hair, got traumatized and scarred for life in the hands of salon personnel at least once in their life.
This strange and frightening phenomena has been taking place from time immemorial, actually ever since the art of hair dressing has been introduced to this callous and dangerous human kind. Whatever you do, do NOT be fooled by that comfortable chair sitting smugly amidst a sea of various hair torturing equipment, for this is where many long, healthy and unsuspecting hairs had perished, shedding their very last breath, quivering, at the hands of an evil salon personnel.
Once you sit there, you are no longer a human being with opinions, wishes, likes or dislikes. You are just a head of hair, practice material, a playground for the evil saloner/saloness which waves suggestively, beckoning the salon personnel to come and practice their dark arts upon it. God forbid if you so much as knew what was good for yourself or your hair! The evil hair dressers will leer and jeer at you with sarcastic smiles on their faces as you stress upon what you want your hair to look like. While you demonstrate with all the talent you have got as to which length you prefer for your hair, what style you choose, the sinister looks on their well made up faces would spell only one thing- your hair is now MINE! ALL MINE!! Mua ha ha ha ha!!!(evil sinister laughter ensues) You should know that once you sit, you have already surrendered your soul to the devil. Once you sit, you cannot help but watch helplessly as large chunks of hair fall away, bidding their final goodbyes as they fall away, fallen warriors who dared enough to rise up to meet the fatal cut of the scissors and perished in return, leaving you with a broken mess that once upon a time used to be a glorious mane of long black hair that cascaded proudly down your back.
Why all the drama? It was only last week that an obnoxious hair dresser went ninja on my hair. Battle scars are still fresh and wounds have not yet healed. Picked up the pair of scissors and snip, snippety-snip she went, yanking, pulling while all the time, making rather ugly faces at my hair. As she snipped away to her heart's content I tried protest, but my humble attempt was silenced by a scorching look directed at me and I sank back into the chair defeated. Small as she was, armed with that large pair of very mean looking scissors that snapped at me from time to time like an angry piranha and a frown that meant business, she looked truly menacing. At the end of the whole ordeal as she smugly looked on at her hand work, I was left shocked, wild-eyed, wild-haired, with the larger part of what used to be my hair lying lifelessly on the floor. It was not what I envisioned for my hair at all. On my head was the obnoxious salonness's masterpiece. I was in no way impressed by her handy work.
Good news is its growing back rather rapidly. Oh well, I'l live.
So despite the many rumors that revolve around this prestigious prize, I decided to drop by and check out the scene of the Gratiaens this year. Well, things did seem awfully fishy when the sister of a shortlisted author came up to the stage, equipped with a very long speech because the author herself could not attend (it is harped upon insistently that the shortlisted authors will NOT be notified prior to the event) And later on, Ashok Ferrey himself came up to the stage to excuse the other absent finalist who had called him and told Ashok to deliver a few lines from him at the shortlisting since he could not be at the event himself. Maybe it was just coincidence that both these finalists seemed, and as the sister of the other finalist so openly claimed upon stage, to be very good friends of Ashok Ferrey? Or is it really a self-congratulatory award/event where the only qualification to be selected is to move around in the right (i)literati circles, attend the right parties and suck up to the right people as rumor has it? Surely to notify Ashok Ferrey prior to the actual announcement and for the other author to send her sister armed with a very well prepared speech, there must have been quite a lot of prior preparation which could only mean one thing. That they had known all along. But if in reality that is the case and the award is indeed already fixed, maybe be a tiny bit discreet about it and try not to be so obvious? If that really is the case its almost like a loud and thundering clap on the face of other participants as if saying, now look here, its great that y'all have sent in your entries but we have already chosen our own for the title long before you have sent in your entries!
Among this year's finalists are Ruwanthi de Chikera and Nadee Kammallaweera for Kalumali. I really truly hope that they will receive the prize this year for this absolutely brilliant piece.
All in all, an interesting week indeed!
This strange and frightening phenomena has been taking place from time immemorial, actually ever since the art of hair dressing has been introduced to this callous and dangerous human kind. Whatever you do, do NOT be fooled by that comfortable chair sitting smugly amidst a sea of various hair torturing equipment, for this is where many long, healthy and unsuspecting hairs had perished, shedding their very last breath, quivering, at the hands of an evil salon personnel.
Once you sit there, you are no longer a human being with opinions, wishes, likes or dislikes. You are just a head of hair, practice material, a playground for the evil saloner/saloness which waves suggestively, beckoning the salon personnel to come and practice their dark arts upon it. God forbid if you so much as knew what was good for yourself or your hair! The evil hair dressers will leer and jeer at you with sarcastic smiles on their faces as you stress upon what you want your hair to look like. While you demonstrate with all the talent you have got as to which length you prefer for your hair, what style you choose, the sinister looks on their well made up faces would spell only one thing- your hair is now MINE! ALL MINE!! Mua ha ha ha ha!!!(evil sinister laughter ensues) You should know that once you sit, you have already surrendered your soul to the devil. Once you sit, you cannot help but watch helplessly as large chunks of hair fall away, bidding their final goodbyes as they fall away, fallen warriors who dared enough to rise up to meet the fatal cut of the scissors and perished in return, leaving you with a broken mess that once upon a time used to be a glorious mane of long black hair that cascaded proudly down your back.
Why all the drama? It was only last week that an obnoxious hair dresser went ninja on my hair. Battle scars are still fresh and wounds have not yet healed. Picked up the pair of scissors and snip, snippety-snip she went, yanking, pulling while all the time, making rather ugly faces at my hair. As she snipped away to her heart's content I tried protest, but my humble attempt was silenced by a scorching look directed at me and I sank back into the chair defeated. Small as she was, armed with that large pair of very mean looking scissors that snapped at me from time to time like an angry piranha and a frown that meant business, she looked truly menacing. At the end of the whole ordeal as she smugly looked on at her hand work, I was left shocked, wild-eyed, wild-haired, with the larger part of what used to be my hair lying lifelessly on the floor. It was not what I envisioned for my hair at all. On my head was the obnoxious salonness's masterpiece. I was in no way impressed by her handy work.
Good news is its growing back rather rapidly. Oh well, I'l live.
So despite the many rumors that revolve around this prestigious prize, I decided to drop by and check out the scene of the Gratiaens this year. Well, things did seem awfully fishy when the sister of a shortlisted author came up to the stage, equipped with a very long speech because the author herself could not attend (it is harped upon insistently that the shortlisted authors will NOT be notified prior to the event) And later on, Ashok Ferrey himself came up to the stage to excuse the other absent finalist who had called him and told Ashok to deliver a few lines from him at the shortlisting since he could not be at the event himself. Maybe it was just coincidence that both these finalists seemed, and as the sister of the other finalist so openly claimed upon stage, to be very good friends of Ashok Ferrey? Or is it really a self-congratulatory award/event where the only qualification to be selected is to move around in the right (i)literati circles, attend the right parties and suck up to the right people as rumor has it? Surely to notify Ashok Ferrey prior to the actual announcement and for the other author to send her sister armed with a very well prepared speech, there must have been quite a lot of prior preparation which could only mean one thing. That they had known all along. But if in reality that is the case and the award is indeed already fixed, maybe be a tiny bit discreet about it and try not to be so obvious? If that really is the case its almost like a loud and thundering clap on the face of other participants as if saying, now look here, its great that y'all have sent in your entries but we have already chosen our own for the title long before you have sent in your entries!
Among this year's finalists are Ruwanthi de Chikera and Nadee Kammallaweera for Kalumali. I really truly hope that they will receive the prize this year for this absolutely brilliant piece.
All in all, an interesting week indeed!
