Because of the promise Krithika made to Suyodhana, her mother always traveled around the world in search of ancient artifacts, sites and treatises, trying to find something, anything, to help her husband and keep her daughter Aru safe. Once when she was 10, while swinging from the trunk of Greg the elephant, Aru accidentally fell and cracked her arm.Įven though she whole-heartedly loved the Museum and her mother, while growing up, Aru couldn't help but feel lonely. Aru even regularly hid a stash of candy in the mouth of the four-hundred-year old sea dragon whom she had named Steve. Often, she used to fall asleep in the theater and wake up just before crackling self-guided tour announced that India became free from the British rule in 1947.

She used to do her homework under the giant stone elephant at the entrance, whom she would later name Greg. Growing up, the museum never kept any secrets from her. However, as a tribute to him, Aru's mother always read that book to her when she was little.Īru Shah was raised in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture in Atlanta, Georgia, and had lived there for as long as she could remember. When she was born, her father Suyodhana had decided to buy a gift for his daughter, which was the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, but he never managed to gift her the book, because he was in some kind of hurry. Shah and Suyodhana, who would eventually be the Sleeper, in an unnamed hospital in the Otherworld. On February 15th, presumably 2004, Aru Shah was born to Krithika P.

Aru shah and the tree of wishes