Honda City

The Kingfisher calendar girl’s preferred set of wheels is a black City.

‘my honda city gives me space, comfort, safety.’

For the diva of the modelling world, it has indeed been quite a journey. From being a ramp model to a popular VJ for Channel V to becoming the face of the Kingfisher calendar for two consecutive years, Pia Trivedi has achieved several accolades in a very short span of time. Add to that bagging the chartbuster song ‘Right here, right now’ from the film Bluffmaster where she featured in the video alongside bigwigs such as Abhishek Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra. We caught up with the long-limbed Pia Trivedi and discovered that besides juggling the abovementioned roles, she squeezes in another one as well — that of a car lover.
Not a stranger to Mumbai’s public transport system, Pia used the BEST bus service on a regular basis while studying at Jai Hind College, Churchgate. Despite having a Maruti Esteem for a family car, she preferred riding the bus as also for the fun company of batchmates who used the same mode of transport.
How did it all start for her then?

“Well, there were no shortcuts” she says. Coming from a law-abiding family, her parents ensured that their daughter, after turning 18, went about getting her license the legal way. It was only after enrolling in a driving school and successfully passing the driving test was she was permitted to drive the family car.
She started out with a Maruti Zen and as more work and moolah came her way, she upgraded from the Maruti Zen to the Honda City. Like most Hollywood stars of the West who have a penchant for all things black, Pia also decided that the colour of her automobile was going to be the mystical black. “Black looks great on all cars and you can never go wrong with black,” she says. While she wasn’t unhappy with the Maruti Zen and was satisfied with the mileage it gave, this time around she wanted a car that offered her more in terms of comfort, space and safety.
“The Honda City envelopes me with a sense of protection — I feel very protected inside. Besides that, it is a very comfortable car and I am also kicked about the mileage,” she says. “While most of my friends are whining about the mileage they get on their cars, I am grinning from ear to ear. I also feel that the Honda City is a very good car for our Mumbai roads.”
Considering her work involves her driving or being driven about the city, she ensured that she got the right kind of car that would meet all her requirements to the tee. So, whether she is catching up with friends or going out to get some coffee, the City is her preferred set of wheels that accompanies her on jaunts.
The self-declared car lover who “loves driving” also knows a thing or two about cars and surprised us when she told us that she could actually fix a puncture and had in fact done so when an occasion demanded it. Sorry guys, not quite your damsel in distress this one.
Like every car lover who loves to get behind the wheel on every single occasion that they can, Pia loves driving especially along the roads in and around the Bandra Reclamation area, the same roads as in a major sequence for the popular Dhoom film. However, her favourite remains the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
So what’s playing in her CD player? Black Eyed Peas, says Pia who aspires to own a Ferrari some day. “Not a red one though,” she says and no brownie points for guessing the colour she’d want hers in.