Book Excerpt: The Fabulous Mums of Champion Valley By Zarreen Khan

For Ambika, becoming a primary schoolteacher is the answer to her problems—it pays her bills and feeds her travel bug. Children are not her favourite people, but she's determined to deal with them. Yet, absolutely nothing has prepared her for the whirlwind of drama she's plunged into by the ridiculously demanding and unreasonable school mums. From obsessing about their kids outshining others to endless complaints and blame games, these ladies are a force to reckon with. 

Fed up with their continuous demands and stifled by the strict education system, Ambika accidentally sets off a chain of events that shocks everyone and threatens to reveal explosive secrets.

Will Ambika survive the fallout of irking the powers that be, or will she be swept away by the chaos?

Here's an excerpt from Zareen Khan's The Fabulous Mums of Champion Valley

But who cares about weight and all! When you realize new parent in class is none other than Varaz Dotwalla! I toh sent a message on the family WhatsApp immediately! Popularly known as Mihir Gondal from We Are the Gondals serial on Star Plus from about fifteen years ago, Varaz Dotwalla had been, hai, everyone’s heartthrob. When he had died in serial, I thought I had also died. I cried, Mummy cried, even my maid Sarita took a week off to moan. Mourn. Whatever. And here he was. In flesh and blood! Alive! And still with his famous dimple. And muscle. Lot of muscle. Sitting five inches away from me. I toh made it sound on family WhatsApp group like he was in my lap only!

‘Dekha, how Giselle shifted to make place for him?’ I cackled to Jia sitting next to me, but she just rolled her eyes. Jia clearly didn’t know who Varaz Dotwalla was. She must have been in US when We Are the Gondals was coming on TV. 

‘Control, yaar, Riddhi!’ Harsh whispered pushing sharp elbow into my ribs. I snapped right back at him. 

‘Control weight, control diet, now control eyes also! You be useful now, Harsh, just pretend you’re taking a pic of me and take his photo in background.’ 

‘Are you mad! How can I take your picture during the orientation?’ 

‘See? That Rekha Tandon toh is shamelessly taking his photo thinking nobody’s seeing.’ There she was, her sindoor so much, it always looked like she had head injury, putting her phone under the table but taking photo candidly. I knew these tricks! Once I’d done it with Hema Malini when she was in Dubai. 

Teacher was going on and on, and nobody was even asking questions now. Whole class attention was on Varaz Dotwalla. Out of pity feeling, I turned back to teacher. Even she looked distracted. Who wouldn’t be? Vaise, she looked too young to be teacher. But all teachers of Champion Valley looked younger than their age. Even Miss Veena, last year’s class teacher for Syra, I thought so she was too young but her elder one was in Yell University. Miss Ambika looked younger than that also. I looked for a wedding ring on her finger but didn’t find one. But nowadays modern women don’t wear rings also. How is one to tell! 

I looked around the room at other wedding rings, especially Varaz Dotwalla’s wife’s. Uff, if only I’d let her sit next to me instead of saving place for Jia! But her ring was a plain band with diamonds. Not even solitaire. Maybe it was new trend. My eyes fell on Giselle Savarkar, sitting behind me wearing olive-green business suit and heels so high like Qutab Minar, hair like brown-brown hay and skin so white-white with American-type freckle also. And her eyes also were green, like a cat everyone said, but I think so more like leopard, ready to attack. She was also in only simple gold band. Trying to be too much modern. 

‘Where are you lost! Pay attention!’ Harsh whispered harshly. So boring this talk about homework. Syra finished it in school only. Too tough being mother of genius. 

Then, it started. Same introduction game they play every year. I’m total bore of it. Miss Ambika held a stuffed ball and started to throw it towards parents. Introduce yourself and your child by comparing them to an animal. Hain? Animal? Bhai, is this school or zoo? 

First went to Rekha Tandon sindoorwali. She looked so surprised and irritated to have to turn back from leching at Varaz Dotwalla, she quickly said her son was like lion because he was brave, which was rubbish. Last year at Syra’s birthday party he got scared of the clown and cried. 

Next, Anita Chatterjee said her daughter is nightingale. I have heard her daughter sing. More like a crow, but you can’t tell a parent that. Parents are too much sensitive about children. Then Pooja Sood said their daughter was like a butterfly and I thought so she still looked like a caterpillar only, behen. No blooming had happened yet. But Pooja Sood was Harsh’s client and had bought very big villa two months ago, so I couldn’t say anything. Because with big villa came big pool and it was good for playdates. You can wear beachwear without being on beach. 

Ball went to two more people before coming to snooty Giselle Savarkar, who almost dropped her phone. She passed it to her husband, Rajiv Savarkar who’s some hi-fi lawyer, I remember, and he said his son, Kevin, was a horse, but then immediately Giselle Savarkar snatched the ball and said, ‘No, he’s not, he’s a unicorn.’ She almost shouted! He’s unique and she wants him to defy stereotypes. 

Bhai, you defy stereotypes first then! You kept your husband’s last name very nicely, Giselle Savarkar. That is stereotype. I still say I’m Riddhi Makheeja Chhabra— RMC. Harsh says I sound like American rapper but why keep only your husband’s name? And she wants son to defy stereotype! 

Really, she is so sada hua like she eats raw lemons for breakfast. Harsh says lemons in the morning are good for weight loss but I told him lemons are only good on top of chaat or in cake. But this Giselle Savarkar … 

She caught me looking at her and, with a bored expression, threw the ball right in my face! 

Bloody bitch!

Extracted with permission from Zarreen Khan's The Fabulous Mums Of Champion Valley; published by HarperCollins India