Whimsical or load-shedding!

By PRAGYA KARKI

When you have office, you earnestly desire for a break and have a list of things-to-do. When you get a break you end up being so sluggish! I woke up, freshened myself then went though dailies to make me updated on what is happening in our world.

I had long thought about straightening my hair but I was not at all sincere and serious about this. Consequently, I had not been able to grant my valuable time for it. I reached my nearest salon, and as I had prayed for, there were no other girls because I would like to have the hairdresser's full attention in me! The work of hair straightening is neither short nor sweet as your hairs are literally pulled from its roots. One can well imagine how excruciating it will be. It takes almost four to five hours depending upon the length and quality of the hair. 

Before I sat in front of a huge mirror, the hairdresser started talking to herself; she was remembering days that had a load shedding. It was for two consecutive days her area had power cut at 5.30 in the evening so there was no possibility of power cut at 5.30 on this particular day. As per her, the time is supposed to be 10 at night, so we started with our work. I was feeling all nice to have my hairs treated with all sorts of crème, washed and then blow dried. 

Then came the part of pulling my hairs from their roots by a heated ironing rod, I was incessantly telling the lady to do it lightly. We even joked saying how gratifying it would be to perform this task on a person you detest! My pulled hairs started looking so straight, the pain was worth it. But lo! All of a sudden it was so dark inside the salon. Well, no awards for guessing,

NEA did not want me to look pretty with straight silky hairstyle like that of Jennifer Aniston! Our calculation went wrong and there was this power cut, at 5.30 sharp. You can well imagine mine as well as my service provider's plight. She was saying there were two other girls who had a similar fate like mine some few days before.

She was so annoyed, as her work was time and again being disrupted by this unmanaged so called load management imposed by the electricity authority of a country which has 83,000 MW of hydropower potential! I even suggested her

to have a rechargeable straightening rod, but the countries that manufacture these products don't have to suffer from power cut and why would they care for a country like ours where the market is too small! Well what next, I visited the salon next day as well to do the remaining. For me, it was like hair straightening done in an installment! I could not figure out whether I was whimsical or the load shedding! (TKP, March 16, 2007)