Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

By Roopa Raveendran-Menon

Ten-year-old Chandu's summer vacation is cut short by the arrival of his Victory Calculator or known in more pedestrian circles as the Report Card. Having scored 88 percent in Math, Chandu thinks he is out of the woods but he couldn't be more wrong. His parents, who always harbored odd but conflicting ambitions for Chandu, are very disappointed. Much to Chandu's dismay, they manage to cast aside their differences and decide to punish him by shipping him off to a boarding school. Disheartened by his parents' heartlessness, Chandu sets out on a long walk. During his wandering in the untended part of his town, Peringavur, he stumbles upon a rather dilapidated and an ordinary-looking shop called The Exchange Your Parents Shop.' Chandu's curiosity is piqued by this signage and wonders if it delivers what it promises. After much deliberation, he meets the shop's overly cheerful proprietor, Miss Piyakshi who informs him that he could sign up for the Happily Ever After Program and look for a perfect set of parents all in five hours, thanks to her top-of-the-line Time Twister. Chandu is intrigued and tempted by this exciting proposition. Was this his perfect way out of a boarding school situation? Embark upon this fantastical adventure with Chandu as he makes a bunch of crazy and surprising discoveries along the way. And remember to put away your magic wands and spells because, in this journey, you won't need them!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regal House Publishing
• Release date: Feb 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646030415

Book preview

Contents

Praise for Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

Copyright © 2020 Roopa Raveendran-Menon. All rights reserved.

Dedication

With or Without Cheeks

The Terrible Tens

The B-word is Dropped

A New Adventure is on the Horizon

The Exchange Your Parents Shop

Mustache Muthu and His Super Vehicle

The Super Brainy Parents Welcome Chandu

All Work and No Fun Makes Chandu a Grumpy Boy

Skeletons in The Super Brainy Parents Home

Climb Aboard Temple Tampuran

Superstardom Awaits Chandu

All that Glitters is Not Gold

Before the Curtains Fall

Mustache Muthu Arrives in a Flying Peacock

Welcome to the Olympian World

When the Olympian Life Throws Chandu a Few Curve Balls

Is It Going to Be a Home Run for Chandu?

Up in the Air

Welcome to the Arty-Crafty World

Let the Crafty Games Begin

Things Are About to Get Craftier

A Royal Ride to Remember

Obediently Yours

Too Good to be True?

With Loads of Fun Come Loads of Responsibility

Miss Piyakshi Has a New Plan

Home Sweet Home

Another Exciting Adventure!

Acknowledgements

Praise for Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

"Hasn’t every child wished at some point that they could trade their annoying parents in for ‘better’ models? Readers will delight following ten-year-old Chandu on his fantastical time-traveling adventure to different households searching for the perfect replacement parents. Written in prose that zings and sings, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents is a zany, sweet reminder that love takes many forms and we should all be careful what we wish for. Peppered with tidbits of Indian Folklore and chock-a-block with charming, outlandish characters—human and animal alike, Chandu’s quest is a marvelous modern fable. Hold on tight, dear readers, you’re in for a colorful ride!"

- Alice Kaltman, author of Wavehouse and The Tantalizing Tale Of Grace Minnaugh

Tightly woven, with clear images, full of telling detail and very informative also for westerners, who should have no trouble seeing and feeling love and empathy for Chandu as he seeks and worries whether his parents are the best ones for him, as still within their love always, he lives into the answers. A true Memory Zapper. Thank you, lord Shiva, for everything, and especially Roopa…

- James Lawry, author of The Nudibranch Elegies & Anthropocene’s End

An amusing read that intersperses real-life issues with a healthy dose of fiction! Peppered with wonderfully apt nicknames and tongue-in-cheek comments, the story revolves around a disgruntled Chandu who visits the local Exchange Your Parents Shop. Escorted by Moustache Muthu and the haughty Pinky Parrot, he uses the Time Twister to travel to exotic locations. Does Chandu find his dream parents? What is his final decision? Roopa Raveendran-Menon has an engaging style of narration that takes the readers along with Chandu, keeping them hanging on to her every word. The anticipation grows as he explores different possibilities that are a reality in the modern world… possibilities that the youth of today juggle between before they opt for that one choice that leads them towards satisfaction and fulfillment. While children will enjoy this joyride, it is also a subtle eye-opener to eager-beaver parents who want to push their children into careers that they may not be enthused about.

- Deepti Menon, author of Arms and the Woman and Shadow in the Mirror

Chandu and the Super Set of Parents

Roopa Raveendran-Menon

Fitzroy Books

Copyright © 2020 Roopa Raveendran-Menon. All rights reserved.

Published by Fitzroy Books

An imprint of

Regal House Publishing, LLC

Raleigh, NC 27612

All rights reserved

https://fitzroybooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781646030149

ISBN -13 (hardcover): 9781646030521

ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646030415

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020930408

All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

Interior and cover design by Lafayette & Greene

Cover images © by C. B. Royal

Regal House Publishing, LLC

https://regalhousepublishing.com

The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

For my ‘Cheeky Chandu’ Siddhi (Nanda)

Without you this book wouldn’t be

1.

With or Without Cheeks

All parents—even the seemingly normal, kind ones—have a mean streak buried deep within. All they need is a little trigger, a teensy-weensy push, and then Lord Shiva help their children!

Chandu’s parents were seemingly normal, kind people. They provided a roof over their son’s head, gave him four square meals a day, clothed him, hugged him on his birthday and during festivals like Onam and Diwali, and allowed him the occasional junk food fest of potato chips and gooey chocolate cake.

Really, Chandu had absolutely nothing to complain about.

Except. Chandu’s father, Engineer Appunni (which was exactly how he liked to be addressed), was determined to turn Chandu into an engineer, just like him. His mother, Ammukutty, had other ideas. I just want him to grow up to be an ordinary and simple boy. One engineer is more than enough for one family, she said firmly.

Unfortunately for both his parents, Chandu’s destiny was neither to be ordinary nor to be an engineer. For it was apparent from the day he was born that there was something different about Chandu. Indeed, the story of his birth would go down in Peringavur’s town history, a story that its citizens would gossip about for decades to come. Chandu, you see, was born with such colossal cheeks that his mother had to be given an epidural with a needle the size of a jumbo jet! On January 20th, after forty-six hours of excruciating labor, just as the clanging bells at the Peringavur Temple were announcing the morning prayers, Chandu’s enormous cheeks pushed their way out of his mother’s womb—followed by the rest of him.

Celebrations followed in the local hospital, for no one had ever seen a cheekier boy. Chandu’s dumpling cheeks even found a brief mention in the Peringavur Times under the Weird Happenings section:

In a case of bizarre delivery, a woman gave birth to a child whose jumbo cheeks resembled enormous lumpy balls of chapati dough. While we have all heard of the mighty demon king Ravan with his ten heads, we have never before heard mention, in any part of the scriptures, of a boy with such massive cheeks….

After the delivery, Ammukutty took Chandu in her arms and began to weep uncontrollably as she caressed her son’s doughy cheeks. She exclaimed over his plump and fulsome cheeks and suggested to her husband, Engineer Appunni, that they name him Cheeky Chandu.

Cheeky Chandu? her husband exclaimed dismissively. Bah! Such a un-engineering kind of name. The boy shall be named Engineer Chandrasekhar. But Ammukutty didn’t give up easily, and, in the end, Chandu’s birth certificate read: Engineer Chandrasekhar Cheeky Chandu.

The proud parents’ happiness and joy vanished, however, the moment Chandu’s enormous cheeks debuted in the Weird Happenings section of the Peringavur Times. Within hours of its publication, a never-ending line of curious visitors gathered outside the hospital room, peering in the windows and through the doorjamb, striving to catch a glimpse of their son’s famous cheeks. The crowd even followed them home after Ammukutty was discharged!

Ugh…they are here again! Engineer Appunni muttered as he peered through the curtains at the townsfolk squatting at their gate. Don’t they have anything else to do?

Lord Krishna, he is a just an ordinary boy! Why won’t they leave us alone? Ammukutty exclaimed tearfully as she dabbed her eyes with the pallu of her sari. I need to do another puja. Chandu’s mother rushed to her puja room for the fifth time that morning to light more incense and chant more mantras.

Well, he will certainly not grow up to be ordinary, of that much I am certain, Ammukutty thought. But I don’t want him to be famous for his dumpling cheeks, either!

Meanwhile, Engineer Appunni imagined his son presenting an important engineering plan to important clients, who twittered incessantly about his gigantic cheeks. Who could possibly take him seriously? Engineer Appunni worried, puffing away on his tenth cigarette of the morning. This was the price they were paying for their son’s legendary cheeks! As for Chandu, he didn’t realize that he, too, was going to pay a price, not only for his cheeks but for being born to parents with such conflicting destinies in mind for their son.

At seven months, Chandu surprised his parents by waddling across the living room toward a favorite toy car.

Oh, Lord Krishna! his mother wailed. He is walking already!

Engineer Appunni, peering around the corner of his newspaper to see what the commotion was all about, flung the newspaper to the ground, shouting, He is a genius, Ammukutty! Walking at seven months! He will surely know all the numbers from one to one hundred by the time he is two years old! That’s my boy—Engineer Chandrasekhar! Engineer Appunni did a little jig, much to his wife’s annoyance and to his son’s shock. In fact, little Chandu was so bewildered by his parents’ reactions that he refused to walk again, that is until just after he turned one—but by then it was perfectly ordinary.

When Chandu turned two and announced, in a clear and ringing tone, that he loved his red truck, Engineer Appunni and Ammukutty were again delighted by the boy’s cleverness. Engineer Appunni decided that his son, Chandu the Engineer Genius, should immediately begin to learn the basic theorems critical to the understanding of advanced engineering. So every evening after work, Engineer Appunni would read aloud to Chandu—not fairy tales or other children’s books that other families read, but theorems, articles, and treatises from obscure science journals. Needless to say, Chandu learned his lesson, clamped his mouth shut, and refused to say another word. When he turned three, his parents took him to see Dr. Beady-Eyed Babu, who examined Chandu thoroughly and recommended a steady diet of children’s books and fairy tales. When Chandu finally opened his mouth to speak, his voice was a little louder than a squeak.

With every passing year—and with every milestone he managed to achieve or not achieve— he began to understand that he was caught in an endless tussle of being ordinary versus being a top-notch engineer. But what poor Chandu didn’t realize was that his parents were not the only people in Peringavur who were keeping a close watch on him. The Weird Happenings team from the Peringavur Times was also following his every move, eager to see what might become of the boy with the impossibly cheeky cheeks. As for Chandu, who was constantly pushed and jostled into being an engineer or being ordinary, he quietly made up his mind to be neither. For just as parents who are seemingly normal and kind often have a hidden mean streak, boys who are seemingly meek and obedient often have a hidden rebellious streak, just waiting to emerge. All they need is a little time….

The Weird Happenings team followed young Chandu’s exploits with great anticipation, labeling Engineer Chandrasekhar Cheeky Chandu with the town’s top potential to streak down Peringavur Beach and tear up every math book in sight before the age of eight. They imagined Chandu to be a