Aru Shah and the End of Time

Aru and Mini try to use their ball and mirror to escape, but the gifts don’t work. Mini figures the creature is a whale and tries to find a way to make it gag and eject them. As the whale’s back teeth continue to move dangerously close to the girls, Aru notices that there are weapons hidden among them.

Aru attempts to get to the weapons, but a gust of air knocks her down again, and she realizes the whale is trying to inhale them. Mini and Aru fight to keep their grip, but Mini slips. Aru instinctively brings the ball out in an attempt to protect her; tethers of light emerge from it, which Aru uses to yank Mini out of the whale’s throat. The ball then turns into vajra, Indra’s lightning bolt.

Aru tries to prop open the whale’s jaws using vajra, but she almost gets stabbed by one of the whale’s teeth. Mini rushes to save her, and violet light envelopes both of them in protective spheres: It is coming from the compact, which has turned into Dharma Raja’s danda.

The girls exit the creature, which Mini identifies as a timingala, a celestial guard whale shark. The girls keep walking and end up in a hall of windows, all of which look out onto countless different worlds. They hear machinery in the distance, and stacks of paper fall to the ground with details of people’s activities; Mini identifies the space as Chitrigupta’s archives, and new ground looms up ahead with pools of water in different sizes. The ground between the pools is wet, and Aru slips and falls near a pool that displays her mother’s face.

Aru sees a memory of her mother walking hand-in-hand with the Sleeper; they occasionally stop to kiss. The scene changes to show Krithika at the doorstep of a house; when her father opens the door, Krithika reveals she is pregnant. She and Suyodhana know that when the child becomes of age, Suyodhana will become the Sleeper; however, he believes he will not be lost to the prophecy. Krithika’s father insists no one can change fate and asks if Krithika has learned the secret of how Suyodhana is to be defeated. She has, but she refuses to betray his trust. Her father turns her away from the house for good, saying that she is defeating the purpose of the panchakanya.

The scene changes to Krithika cradling a newborn Aru in a hospital room while the Sleeper dozes beside them. Krithika whispers that she loves both of them and is doing what she must to free them all. The scene changes again to the museum, where Krithika tearfully imprisons the Sleeper in the diya “with something that is not made of metal, wood, or stone […] that is neither dry nor wet” (268); instead of destroying him, as she was supposed to, she is containing him while she looks for ways to free both him and Aru.

Mini yanks Aru back, relieved that she is still alive; Mini has also seen everything in the pool. The girls realize they have found the way to defeat the Sleeper from the Pool of the Past, as per Urvashi’s instructions. As they wonder where to find something that is neither metal, wood, stone, dry, nor wet, Aru realizes that the vajra qualifies.

Aru and Mini discuss that perhaps having been given weapons means that their celestial fathers do care about them, after all. They walk past the pools and arrive at an archway, where they are greeted by Wish, a small, fuzzy dragon covered in eyelashes, and Past Time, a tiny, spider-like clockwork creature. They demand the girls leave something behind in order to pass; alternatively, good karma can also let them go. Aru presents the tokens Chitrigupta gave the girls.

As the girls exit the Kingdom of Death through the tunnel between life and death, Aru feels like “she [has] done this before, and never quite wanted to, but submitted to it all the same” (280). She remembers impossible things, like being cradled by her mother as a baby and told that she is loved. The girls emerge into the middle of a road where vehicles lie abandoned, and a television blares from an empty tollbooth.

Aru and Mini approach the tollbooth where the television displays news of an airborne virus breaking out across the United States. It is being called the Frozen Syndrome, as it leaves its victims unresponsive. As Aru switches off the TV, the number on her palm changes to 1; it is the girls’ last day to stop the Sleeper.

The girls know how to summon him—they just have to speak his name—but they wonder how to fight him. Aru remembers the celestial mounts and assures Mini they will have help. They decide to summon the Sleeper at the museum, the site of his old prison. Aru calls out to the mounts, and a veritable zoo descends out of the skies. The mounts agree to carry the girls to the museum and help them fight though they will have to leave the instant they are summoned back by the gods.

As the mounts speed toward the museum, they notice that everything is frozen. Mini is awed that Aru lives at the museum, and Aru feels a surge of pride. As the mounts await Aru’s command, she asks Mini if she can use the danda and conjure an illusion of a human being. They devise a plan, and a half hour later, the mounts take up formation and disappear into the shadows. The number on the girls’ palms fades, and Aru summons the Sleeper.

A minute later, the door to the museum swings open, and a horde of demons enters, along with the Sleeper, who has Boo in the bird cage. Boo yells at them to get out, but the Sleeper releases a black trail from his palm, which grabs the girls and pins them to the wall.

At Aru’s signal, Mini conjures up an illusion of Krithika. The Sleeper drops Boo in shock, and the bird flies and pecks at the shadows binding the girls, allowing Aru to pry herself loose. The Sleeper lunges at the illusion and steps into the trap set by the girls, a chalk circle that places him in the center of all the mounts: Aru yells for them to attack.

Aru and Mini run for shelter as the mounts and demons engage in battle. The Sleeper escapes the battle and approaches the girls, and Aru shoots a bolt from the vajra and brings down a huge chandelier around the Sleeper. As Aru prepares to deliver a final blow, the demons and celestial mounts suddenly disappear, the latter having been called back by their respective deities. The Sleeper rises and pins Mini and Boo to the wall, warning Aru to drop the vajra or he will kill her friends.

The Sleeper snatches up the vajra as Aru drops it. He proclaims that Aru and Krithika are the ones who made him into what he is, when all he wanted to do was break out of his destiny. He notes that killing Aru and Mini will release them from the slavery of constant rebirth, essentially freeing them.

While the Sleeper is talking, Aru remembers the tile gifted to her by the palace and throws it onto the floor. A gust of wind pushes the Sleeper back and distracts him, allowing Aru to snatch back the vajra. Before she can strike, however, the Sleeper tells her she is cursed. Aru has a vision of herself on a battlefield surrounded by four other girls, including Mini, all of them older and taller; they are all wielding weapons, and Mini’s face is etched with hatred. The Sleeper tells Aru that “Fate never intended for [her] to be a hero” (301).

The vision fades, but Aru is left struck with doubt about why her sisters are turning away from her. The Sleeper insists that killing him will make the vision come true, and she will lose everyone about whom she has ever cared. He asks her to join him, and they can reject fate together. However, Aru remembers Mini, Boo, her mother, and all the things she has accomplished in the past few days. She asserts that she is already a hero and lets the vajra fly, but her doubt causes the vajra to stop short of hitting the Sleeper. He taunts Aru, saying that she will one day see things his way, before disappearing.

The vajra retreats into a ball in Aru’s hand, and she sinks to the floor in tears. Mini and Boo jump down, and Boo consoles her, insisting that “It is not failure to fail” (307). Time unfreezes around them, and Boo explains that only if the Sleeper had reached the Kingdom of Death by the new moon would he have been successful; delaying him thwarted his plan. Aru wonders if the Council will still want to train the girls after her failure, but Mini reminds her of Shukra’s curse, asserting it is what made her let the Sleeper get away. Krithika, now unfrozen, runs toward the girls, and Aru jumps into her arms.

Aru and Mini wait as Krithika talks to Mini’s parents on the phone. Aru’s three fellow students are yet to unfreeze, as they were in such close proximity to the lamp. Boo tells the girls they will begin training sessions soon and asks if they will accept his tutelage despite his past. Aru says that people can change, and Boo pledges his loyalty to the Pandavas.

Mini goes back home through the passage inside the stone elephant, and Boo asks to speak to Krithika separately. Aru heads back to the Hall of Gods, where the three students have finally unfrozen. They accuse Aru of being a liar and breaking the lamp, and begin recording her again. Aru feels Chitrigupta’s pen in her pocket and uses it to write a message in the air; a piece of paper appears in her pocket, and from it, she reads aloud embarrassing stories about the other three students. They are aghast and delete the video; after they leave, a new note from Chitrigupta appears in Aru’s pocket: “Consider that the first and last time! Naughty child” (316).

The girls spend every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, learning war strategy from Hanuman, dancing and etiquette from Urvashi, and folklore from Boo. Over Christmas break, they will have new teachers join them and will meet other Otherworldly kids in training. While in their respective homes, Aru and Mini send notes to each other via the stone elephant.

On the last day of the school year, Aru runs into Aiden Acharya, a new, good-looking boy at school from an extremely wealthy family, who joined her school last week. He moved into the house across from the museum, and their mothers immediately introduced themselves, both being Indian. Aiden now asks Aru if he knows her from somewhere; panicked, she mumbles that she knows where he lives, before rushing out of the building.

Aru and Mini finish up their dance lessons with Urvashi, and Hanuman takes them around the Night Bazaar for his lesson. Suddenly, an alarm blares; Hanuman snatches the girls up in his palm, growing exponentially in size. Something “even the gods fear” (326) has been stolen, and Hanuman sends the girls home, promising to send word by Monday.

Mini comes over to Aru’s house the next day. There has been no word from Hanuman yet, and Boo is acting especially nervous. Mini asks Aru to go come to her place, but it is the last night before Krithika leaves on another archaeological dig. Mother and daughter still haven’t talked about what happened between Krithika and Aru’s father.

Boo hounds them about practicing their lessons, but the girls dismiss him. Suddenly, there is a howl outside the museum, and the girls and Boo see a massive wolf pacing outside with a glowing, golden bow and arrow in its mouth. No one else seems to notice the wolf. It suddenly changes form into a tall girl around the same age as Aru and Mini and sniffs the air. A noise startles her, and she changes into a bird before flying off with the weapons.

The stone elephant blares a warning siren, the Otherworld’s call for help. Aru notices that Aiden, from across the street, has seen the wolf girl, too, and wonders about this. To their surprise, Boo reveals that the wolf girl is Mini and Aru’s sister, and they prepare for their next adventure.