|  The
Baleno has her smitten. Underrated it may be, but she fancies it.
‘I
can push start my car. Wherever, whenever.’
Bubbly,
effervescent, spontaneous, witty...geez I’m running out of adjectives
here. That’s Nauheed Cyrusi for you of the Piya Basanti music video
fame. She greets us with a slice of toast in her hand as she invites us
into her house located in the quaint tree-lined Parsi colony of Mumbai.
“This will have to be a bit of a rushed interview” she mumbles
in between mouthfuls of toast and trying to figure out a parking place
for her car as well as her half eaten crusty toast. “I’m going
to watch a movie with friends shortly” she explains, “so I
am sorry to rush this”. Whoa! A movie with friends on a Monday morning
in Mumbai? Wow! I mean whatever happened to “Just another maniac
Monday” that Bangles crooned not so long ago?
But hey, I’m not complaining. You don’t often come across
actors who are atypical in terms of their approach towards work. Almost
a hundred ads and five films old, Nauheed is certainly not one of those
striving actors whose typical day involves chasing directors and scouting
for plump roles. In fact, she has been very fortunate and has had her
share of fame with eminent directors such as Pradeep Sarkar (of Parineeta
fame) and Vikram Bhatt (of Ghulam fame) who have carefully cast her in
roles befitting her personality. Add to that an ever growing list of ads
with big brands such as Compaq and LG and sharing frames with Shahrukh
Khan and Abhishek Bachchan.
Coming to cars, her Baleno’s been giving her years of hassle-free
driving. Going back to her early days, when she just got her driving license,
Nauheed had taken her then car, the Zen, out for a spin along with her
cousin. And that happened to be the day when her Zen thought of throwing
a tantrum right in the middle of an extremely busy juntion.
“Boy! What a nightmare that was!” she says, flashing her signature
impish smile. “But look at the plus point” she adds. “That
incident taught me to push start my car and now I can at least push start
my car if it ever gets cranky. ”
“Easy going” and “chilled out” as she likes to
describe herself, she loves driving along Mumbai’s Worli Sea Face.
But most of her time in the Baleno is spent driving from her home in central
Mumbai to the city’s numerous studios in the western suburbs. And
to beat the traffic clogs en route, she plugs her iPod into the car’s
music system. Her music collection boasts of a gamut of genres that are
as varied as trance, hip- hop, lounge and retro, to name a few. While
her family has owned different cars, her father personally favours most
things Maruti. And in keeping with that, they’ve had the Zen and
the Baleno. The Baleno is her trusted companion while going to movies,
clubs, cafes, long drives and catching up with friends and doing the usual
girls night out thing.
All praises for the Baleno, Nauheed goes an extra mile and adds that the
“Baleno is a superb car, performance wise,” and, according
to her, “one of the most underrated cars” that she’s
ever come across.
|
July 2006