Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes

Spoiler Alert! Warning! This page contains spoilers for Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes.

This article is about the book. For the actual tree, see Amaravati#Kalpavriksha.

Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes is the third book in the Pandava Quartet. It was released April 7th, 2020.

Synopsis

War between the devas and the demons is imminent, and the Otherworld is on high alert. When intelligence from the human world reveals that the Sleeper is holding a powerful clairvoyant and her sister captive, 14-year-old Aru and her friends launch a search-and-rescue mission. The captives, a pair of twins, turn out to be the newest Pandava sisters, though, according to a prophecy, one sister is not true.

During the celebration of Holi, the heavenly attendants stage a massive PR rebranding campaign to convince everyone that the Pandavas are to be trusted. As much as Aru relishes the attention, she fears that she is destined to bring destruction to her sisters, as the Sleeper has predicted. Aru believes that the only way to prove her reputation is to find the Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree that came out of the Ocean of Milk when it was churned. If she can reach it before the Sleeper, perhaps she can turn everything around with one wish.

Careful what you wish for, Aru . . .^[1]

Plot

Saving the Twins

Aru Shah, Mini, Brynne Rao and Aiden Acharya were at a Ferris wheel in Atlanta, Georgia. They were on a mission to rescue two people, one of them is a clairvoyant, someone who could see the future and prophesize, which could be determine the victor of the war against the devas and asuras. Mini suggests they climb the Ferris wheel, after all Aru once wore Spider-Man pajamas. After checking booth after booth, Brynne sensed demons, but then they found one with vines and a green light inside. Behind the vines were the two young girls that Aru and Mini saw in their dreams, the clairvoyant's name is Sheela and the other was Nikita. Suddenly, a rakshasa with a bull's head appears, it's the creature that they must save the twins from. Nikita created more vines while Sheela tried to hold the prophecy in. Although the rakshasa tried to so hard to get Sheela for the Sleeper, which included using a sword and stone, Mini used illusions to hide the twins while Brynne blew him onto a telephone pole, knocking him out. They humans all introduce themselves as Pandavas.^[2]

The New Plan

Saving the Twins

Fighting Garuda

Space Gods

Aranyani's Garden

Be Careful what you Wish for

Then there was the little one... This article is in need of expansion. You can edit it in order to achieve a higher standard.

Chapter list

1. Aru Shah Is Not Spider-Man
2. That Time Brynne’s Shoes Got Ruined
3. No New Friends
4. Magical Dead Zone
5. Worse Than Being Sent to the Principal's Office
6. Password! But Make It Fash-un
7. Bro, Do You Even Lift?
8. That's So On-Brand
9. Goal: Don't End Up a Dragon Snack
10. Knock-Knock, Who's There?
11. Get in Heroes, We're Going Questing
12. A Wild Goose Chase
13. Begone, Discount Artichokes!
14. In Which A Giant Nose Spells (Smells!) Trouble
15. No One Signed Up for a Horcrux Hunt
16. Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking.
17. Never Trust a Hot Dog Stand
18. The Plan Does Not Work
19. Isn't This...a Bit Much?
20. At Least There's Not a Dragon
21. Well, Never Mind, Then
22. That's a Nice, Creepy, Destructive God You've Got There
23. The Bird of Mass Destruction. Maybe.
24. You Poor, Unfortunate Souls
25. This is Not Fine
26. Is a Platypus a Bird?
27. Quoth the Raven...
28. Surprise Ostrich!
29. We Are All Potatoes
30. But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?
31. It's Not You, It's Me. All Right, Fine, It's Also You.
32. A Parliament of Foul Fowls
33. What's in a Name?
34. What's a Publix?
35. Where the Deer and the Cantaloupe Play
36. Pick a Wife! Any Wife!
37. Gods Don't Nap. Ew.
38. Someone's Got a Burning Gaze. Literally.
39. And I - Oop!
40. Not the Tiny Legs!
41. You Brought Us to Home Depot?
42. Shh! The Baby Is Sleeping!
43. I'm Not a Regular Mom, I'm a Cool Mom
44. Who is Groot?
45. Please Don't Say You're Inevitable
46. Green is Not Your Color, Trust Me
47. We're Not Lost, Are We?
48. Ignorance Is Bliss
49. The Fury of a Pandava Scorned
50. The Word Aru Never Spoke
51. Epilogue

Prophecy

“THE SCORNED POWERS ARE ON THE RISE,

TO CLAIM THEIR STOLEN IMMORTAL PRIZE.

ONE SISTER SHALL TURN OUT NOT TO BE TRUE.

WITH A SINGLE CHOICE,

THE WORLD SHALL RECEIVE ITS DUE.

ONE TREASURE IS FALSE, AND ONE TREASURE IS LOST,

BUT THE TREE AT THE HEART IS THE ONLY TRUE COST.

NO WAR CAN BE WON WITHOUT FINDING THAT ROOT;

NO VICTORY HAD WITHOUT THE YIELD OF ITS FRUIT.

IN FIVE DAYS THE TREASURE WILL BLOOM AND FADE,

AND ALL THAT WAS WON COULD SOON BE UNMADE.”

Characters

• Aru Shah
• Mini
• Brynne Rao
• Nikita
• Sheela
• Aiden Acharya
• The Sleeper
• Rakshasa
• Opal
• Rudy
• Maruts
• Chandra
• Rahu and ketu
• Garuda
• Aranyani
• Shani
• Vishwakarma
• Kara (Pandava Quintet)

Trivia

• The book is dedicated to Roshani Chokshi's parents: May and Hitesh. She says they "always insisted on making sure we read the 'real' versions of myths and fairy tales." She thanks them for the "delightful trauma" and tells them she loves them.

Mentions of Other Cultures

• When climbing the Ferris Wheel, Aru Shah remembers the 2004 movie The Notebook, which was based on a 1996 book and remade into an Indian Hindi-language film in 2019.
  • Mini also claims she heard Aru sing the theme song for the 1967 cartoon of Spider-Man. Although, the song Aru sings sounds more like the one Homer Simpson sang about his pig in The Simpsons Movie.

References