They are FAST and We are FURIOUS!!

"Lights,Camera,Action!!" The Scene: Abhishek Bachchan is on the lookout for Shah Rukh Khan and his mysterious vehicle which can neither be caught nor be seen because of its amazing speed! Until one day, Abhishek uses the Bugatti Veyron and finally catches a glimpse of the power vehicle with a statement 'Hum ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, na-mumkin hai'! Its the Auto rickshaw!!

People who have traveled in this roller coaster ride would swear by the speed of it. Our Indian auto drivers can be qualified for stunt and chase sequences in Bollywood and if media promotes them well, they have a chance in Hollywood too!! A recent ride in an auto literally had my heart in my mouth. I came home and prayed special 'shukriya' namaaz thanking God for keeping me alive!

There are certain 'characteristics' of auto-drivers here. Firstly they think they rule the roads. They have the ' Catch me if you can' statement running in their minds throughout the day. Their Style statement is so popular that they can create a brand name for themselves. They got a horrid selection of songs which i have categorized as 'Driver songs'. The moment you hear them on TV, you know where you can hear it next! Himesh Reshammiya is their HOT favorite. I don't understand how they can bear the trauma caused by his songs. Waise i am happy for Himesh, at least auto drivers buy and hear his albums, other than himself! LMAO!!! :p

Another amusing thing about auto drivers is the way they sit. They do have a comfortable seat for themselves but they choose ONLY to sit on the right edge of the seat. I seriously wonder why!! :O A recent trend among the Speedsters that i have noticed is the way they reject their customers. The other day me and my siblings had visited a mall and wanted to an auto to go back home. We saw an auto coming our way and signalled him to stop.The STYLISH auto driver reduced the auto speed 'a bit', brought the auto to the side and nodded his head. We presumed he was asking us where we wanted to go and before my brother could even tell the place completely he vanished with his speedcar! He dint even have say ' No', just turned his head and sped away!

We noticed another auto coming and we started waving our hands as if we were stuck on an island and wanted the helicopter's attention! He saw us but acted like we were invisible creatures!! The Nerve!!! Next guy came, stopped, atleast he had the audacity to open his mouth and ask us where we wanted to go, but the moment he heard 'Pandeshwar' he reacted as if we told him we wanted to go to Mumbai!! We looked at the others who stopped the same auto and told their destinations, but the auto guy reacted the same to all the customers!! He seemed to be enjoying looking at the irritated faces.

It had been more than thirty minutes and we had stopped more than a dozen auto's but all were 'style-marofying'! When i saw one soul driving the auto and enjoying rejecting, i told my bro ' Instead of telling where we want to go, ask him where he wants to go!!'. And he did. The auto guy got furious. It was time for us to enjoy! ;)He asked us again and we exploded. Hearing our story, he quietly said ' Please sit'. He felt so bad for us, i thought he might not even charge us! LMAO! :p But he did, Ofcourse. :p

The auto drivers have the new-found-attitude of their own and its here to stay. Their business now is not customized but Driverized. They do not go where we want to, but where they want to! Sometimes they drive like they rule the city, sometimes act like they are 'ekdum' new to the city, intentionally touring us throughout the city, whereas they would actually know the shortest route.

With this attitude and driving skills, they are sure to take over SRK! Watch out! Vrooooooom 3.. Coming soon! ;)

What's in a Name?

The Great poet William Shakespeare asked this in his famous work 'Romeo and  Juliet', And if i was given a chance to reply, i would say
'Mr. Shakespeare, Please read this post and you will know'.

MEHNAZ - Beautiful name, lovely meaning, easy to pronounce and easy to spell. I am sure my parents must have thought this when they named me. Indeed they were right. I love my name, the meaning, the way its pronounced, but.. easy to spell? I doubt! Thanks to all those who have been creating their own versions of my name!!

Its Easy actually. Imagine you hear my name for the first time and in your mind you see it written as 'MEHNAZ'. But unfortunately, everybody's mind do not run on the same lines. And that's the reason i was inspired to write this post! I swear, If i could sue people whenever they misspelled my name, i would have been a millionaire by now and a billionaire in the future! :p

I am glad maximum number of people get my name right. I love you all :)  Then come the 'MENAZ' writing types. I am a lil irritated with them but then i console myself saying 'Its OK, Just one letter is missing and it doesn't sound real bad.' Next on the list of the 'innovators' are the 'MINAZ' creators. Two letters gone wrong!! I am irritated, but again, its OK, its within the limits atleast. We move on to the 'MINAJ' inventors. I am ANGRY!!! 3 letters gone haywire!! And that too a 'J' instead of  'Z'!! Comeon!! Which school did you go to??
I hate you!

'NEHAZ'- The guy who fixed my laptop had this written on my lappy bag!! Dude, you need to go to either Dr. Kishore Shetty, he is the best E.N.T specialist in town or join nursery classes again!! What the hell?!? Even as i recall this and write it here,  my blood boils! :p Okay! Digest this now. The person who is the inspiration behind this post and she wrote 'MEHNG' - You can imagine what i went through when i saw my name written this way!! I saw this on the receipt of my aerobics classes and i got WILD! Seriously!!! 'MEHNG'?!?!?! How on earth did you think my name spelled this way? How? How? How?? I hate u sooo damn much!. Felt like banging my head to the wall but i was like 'Hey! why mine? I should take her head and bang it to the wall!! Stupid Lady!!'

All this made me think of some tips:

•  Keep our ears open when we ask or hear anyone's name.
• Open our mouths wide and pronounce and spell our name to others.
• However easy the name sounds, feel free to ask the spelling the first time you hear it and in case you have a doubt, then PLEASE DO ASK!
• Make sure we name our children keeping in mind the spelling aspect of it.
• If by any chance we go to China, Japan, Korea and such 'chinki' countries, PLEASE do not even dare to ask their names. Just refer to them as 'Hey', 'Dude', 'Dudette', 'Babes' etc!! Trust me, we will be saved ;)
• But if u want the best suggestion, here it is- Follow Shah Rukh Khan! 'My name is MEHNAZ and it is spelled this way 'M.E.H.N.A.Z!!!! 

Aakhir naam mein hi toh hamaari pehchaan hai! ;) What say Mr. Shakespeare? ;)

The Making of 'NaazukSpace'!

Its my first post! :) And its dedicated to my Love, Zuhair. Everybody wants their first post to be an interesting one. While i was thinking on what i can write on, i thought to myself ' Hey! Why not write on how 'We' created this blog!!'. So i told the co-author of this blog, Zuhair Kapadia- My darling techie hubby, about my idea & he said 'Great! that's a good idea!' and so.. here i am! :)

Ever since i heard about Blogs, i wanted to create one. But since i was.. umm.. i AM, a victim of procrastination, i am doing it now, which is like a year and 5 months later! :p Nah.. Its not that i heard about blogs for the first time then, but a friend's blog did the trick. I was soooooooooo in love with her blog that i thought ' I want to write posts too!' Writing has always been something which is very dear to me. I could just have a pen.. aha, not just any pen, It should be a Black gel pen ONLY! :p and a book and i could write for hours together.

Okay now how i FINALLY created one! Yesterday, i.e 15th June, 2010, 10 pm India time, my NY living hubby wakes up! As usual i got a text from him and i came online. We started our usual chatting session. Talks ranging from how my day went on to updates about the weather here in Mangalore and there in NY was being archived on my Yahoo messenger! And then, as the World's #1 football team Brazil ,was playing ( yea just playing, not winning!) against the 105th FIFA ranking team North Korea, i was checking my updates on my Facebook account and i stumbled upon a link! MY BEST friend CREATED a blog!!! Somehow God always enlightens me with the help of my friends! :p So here she was with her Brand new blog and i was loving it! http://prathimarao.blogspot.com/ . It said ' Prats Corner' and 'Prats' was the name i always referred her with. I was happy to see her blog. ( Ur welcome Prats, i know u love me for promoting your blog!) :p

I copied the link to my hubby's IM window & asked him to check it! He said its Cool. I said i am creating one too n added the word NOW to it! :p Having a techie as your hubby has a lot of advantages, and i got to see a few of them while he helped me create this blog :) I was happy again. He gave me the link to create the blog and i signed in. The next step was to give the blog a name. All the names we thought were revolving around my name, until i thought why not we have a shared blog? As in we both are authors in the blog and we both can post articles with our own names. I told this to him. He agreed. I was happy again :)

The excitement continued. Names rolled in our minds, some silly, some hilarious like ' Naaz ki mazedar khichdi', 'Na-Azaadi', 'Mehnaz nolastname'' ( Grrrr), 'Dangerously dangerous' , 'Naazuk ka blogging kaarkhana', 'Naazuk blogs- NYC to Mangalore' etc etc. Finally i said ' NaazukLand'!! Mehnaz's Naaz And Zuhair Kapadia aka Zuk- Naazuk and a Land attached to it. My hubby like a true techie said ' Let's make it 'NaazukSpace' since we are in cyberspace!! ;) I said ' Yeah! Awesome!'. Then a series of questions plagued my mind. My answer bank - Zuhair, Very promptly answered all my queries one by one. ( I would have lost my patience if i was in his place) :p

Templates were chosen, changed again and again though, designs were made, gadgets were added and deleted, fonts were edited, dragging and dropping continued throughout, columns were filled, picture was uploaded and finally when Brazilian fans screamed ' GOAL!!!" ' Our' blog http://naazuk.blogspot.com was ready. And now when i click on the ' Publish Post' option, our blog will be alive n kicking! Alhumdulillah!

Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it.

Love,
Naaz