Mini Kapoor-Mercado-Lopez

* Mini
* With Brynne

**Yamini "Mini" Kapoor-Mercado-Lopez** is a major character in the Pandava Quintet. She is the modern-day reincarnation of the Pandava Yudhistira, and lives in Texas with her brother and parents.

## History

### Early Life

Mini was born to a large family. She grew up relatively happily and normally, although there were familial conflicts about her Indian and Filipino heritage, and she herself was expected to become a doctor instead of a Pandava (everyone expected her brother to be the Pandava), which caused or contributed to her numerous phobias and fears related to death.

## The Pandava Quintet

### Aru Shah and the End of Time

Mini discovers her parents frozen on the couch while watching a movie and her brother frozen in the middle of tossing a basketball because the Sleeper had frozen time around them. Mini curls into a ball on the living room floor and cries, but after a few minutes she goes upstairs and packs a backpack. She swipes eyeliner across her cheeks like war paint, them says goodbye to her family and goes outside to meet Aru Shah and Boo. Mini goes on a quest with Aru and Boo to stop the Sleeper from reaching and waking Lord Shiva, the god of destruction. Although they don't defeat the Sleeper, Aru and Mini manage to stall him long enough from reaching Shiva.

### Aru Shah and the Song of Death

Aru, Mini, and Brynne Rao are framed for stealing Kamadeva’s bow and arrow. They must go on a quest to clear their names, lest they be banished from the Otherworld. Together, with the help of Aiden Acharya, the group travels through the dangerous realm of Naga Loka to discover the real thief and uncover their intentions.

#### All By Mah-Selllf

Mini goes to an Otherworld Halloween party along with Aru, Brynne and Aiden dressed up as a unicorn (even though Aru told her to dress up as Sarah from *Hocus Pocus*)*.*

### Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes

Mini helps rescue two "targets", one of whom is about to utter a prophecy that could turn the tide in the war between the devas and asuras. The targets turn out to be the last two reincarnated Pandava siblings, Nikita Jagan and Sheela Jagan. Ultimately, the Pandavas fail in preventing the prophecy from reaching the Sleeper's ears, and they are asked to step aside. Instead, Mini goes with Aru, Brynne, Aiden and Rudy on their unofficial quest to retrieve Kalpavriksha. The groups encounters new demons and gods on their journey, and eventually locate Kalpavriksha.

### Aru Shah and the City of Gold

Mini, the Potatoes, and Kara travel to Lanka to answer Kubera's summons. They compete in his three trials in order to win the two things that could help them win the war against the asuras, meeting manipulative gods and being tested in ways they have never been before along the way. The Potatoes manage to complete Kubera's dangerous trials and battle alongside the Nairrata army against the Sleeper and his supporters.

## Physical Appearance

Mini is a four-foot-tall girl around Aru’s age, although she’ll probably grow to around 5’2”. She wears glasses and has chocolate brown eyes. Her bangs are likely long, as she has to use a hair barrette to keep them out of her face. Mini's eyes have an up-tilt sweep, and her skin is light gold, like watered down honey.

At the beginning of *Aru Shah and the End of Time*, she appears wearing eyeliner in stripes on her cheeks, like warpaint, and a large backpack that makes her appear like a turtle. Starting from *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, she starts wearing more all-black outfits (because it "hides dirt better!"), black eyeliner, combat boots, and the occasional T-shirt with a skull on it.

## Personality

Mini often fusses over things that can seem inconsequential to Aru and the others, due to her extensive medical knowledge. She constantly names the ways that they could die while on quests, although even when she's terrified, she doesn't hesitate to do her part. As Aru puts it, with Mini’s weirdness comes wisdom. She is the reincarnation of Yudhistira, so it’s only natural. She shows her wisdom in her insights in life, like when she talks to Brynne about click bait, and though she follows rules, it's not out of blind obedience but a true understanding of why the rules are there in the first place.

Mini is extremely intelligent, as she’s going to be a doctor. She knows lots of fun trivia and likes reading books, and she’s good at school, despite being bullied -- Mini got called a tattletale for the crime of telling a teacher about a jerk with two first names who was going to cut off a cancer patient’s regrowing hair. Mini's naturally very kindhearted, objecting to Aru shattering Shukra’s mirrors, and feeling defensive of Hira when she’s being bullied by Navdeep's gang despite barely knowing her.

## Relationships

### **DHARMA RAJA** (previous avatar’s father)

Mini was at first distraught that her soul father was the Dharma Raja, as she’d hoped it would be one of the Ashvin twins. However, she later comes to embrace the fact that she is the daughter of the god of death, something that Brynne and Aru constantly remind her about.

### **ARU SHAH** (friend, Pandava sister)

Aru and Mini quickly became friends during their first quest together; although they have a few rough spots, like when Mini discovers Aru lit the lamp to impress a couple of losers, but they apologize to each other soon after the fact, as they do for the rest of their arguments, and trust each other a lot. Aru thinks that while Mini might be weird, she’s wise, and Mini seems to hold Aru in high regard as well, although she’s somewhat oblivious to Aru’s feelings.

### **BRYNNE RAO** (friend, Pandava sister)

At the beginning of the book, Brynne mainly ignores Mini or thinks she’s weak, while Mini tries to smooth things over between the quartet. She also has a lot of empathy for Brynne, giving her good advice. Brynne seems to like her too, since she’s as angry as Aru that Mini’s captured and wants to rescue her. Brynne and Mini also seem to be pretty good friends by the end of the book.

### **AIDEN ACHARYA** (friend, reincarnated wife)

Aiden and Mini serve as the respective peacemakers of their friend group. They bond briefly over knowing about various diseases while riding wind gazelles to Kamadeva's house in *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, and later Mini comes to view him as a brother.

### **NIKITA** **JAGAN** (friend, Pandava sister)

Nikita and Mini don't interact much, but they become friends
after a rough start. Mini is continually very kind to Nikita and Sheela.

### **SHEELA JAGAN** (friend, Pandava sister)

Sheela likes Mini the most out of all the Potatoes, and Mini likes her too, feeling maternal towards her.

### **UNNAMED FAMILY** (mother, father, grandparents, brother)

Mini cares about her family a lot, but they never expected her to be a Pandava; they expected her to be a doctor. Now that she’s known to be a Pandava, she’s worried she’ll mess up, which isn’t helped by her family setting up a “full-blown Pandava regimen” for her. However, they do care for her, which Aru notes when she visits. There was also a huge fight in the family when Mini’s mom tried to teach her Hindi; her lola thought they were trying to make her more Indian than Filipino.

### **HIRA** (friend, adopted sister)

Mini is upset at Hira’s treatment by her brother and his friends. When Brynne literally blows them off their feet, Mini shields Hira with a bubble, smirking slightly. In later books, they appear to be good friends.

### **SUBALA/BOO/SHAKHUNI** (friend, mentor)

Mini cared a lot for Boo and forgave him quickly after the reveal that he was Shakhuni. In *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*, Mini feels angry with Boo, discovering that he tried to convince Kubera to ignore the Potatoes when they came asking for his help, calling them "weak children". When he appears during their battle with the Sleeper's army, Mini is very upset at him. After Boo dies, she mourns him, but feels somewhat better when Kubera gives them an egg that will hatch a bird with Boo's soul. She and her friends witness the hatching of the new fire bird, which makes her feel very happy.

### **RUDY** (friend, crush/possible love interest)

Mini and Rudy first met in *Aru Shah and the End of Time* when Rudy winks and smiles at Mini, causing Mini to walk straight into a pole.

They don't formally meet until *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*, when Rudy requests to go on the unofficial quest with them. Mini acts awkward around Rudy, because "she hasn't mastered the art of the boy yet". Whenever Mini talks to Rudy, it usually makes Rudy uncomfortable, disgusted, or disturbed. She also is shown to be quite sad when Rudy openly flirts with Aru in front of her. Aru initially feels excited when Rudy invites her to his castle, as she has never been invited anywhere with a boy before. However, when she sees how sad Mini looks, she immediately regrets her excitement, as Mini has a crush on Rudy.

In *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*, Rudy continues his streak of ignoring Mini until she finally stands up to him using her Death Danda. After this, Rudy seems to be more aware of Mini and addresses her directly, instead of acting like she doesn't exist. He smiles and winks at Mini throughout the second half of the book.

### **KARA** (friend, Pandava sister)

Kara and Mini meet in *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*. Mini and Kara act kindly towards each other, and they bond fairly quickly because they both have a love of sharing random facts with their group (Mini enjoys medical facts, while Kara enjoys trivia). Later on in the book, they seem to enjoy each other's company, laughing with each other about Bert. When Kara betrays the Potatoes, Mini is visibly upset and barely says a word in the hours that follow.

## Powers

### **Less Accessible Mind**

In *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, Uloopi states that because Mini is a Pandava, her mind is harder to access, with sizeable gaps in her memory.

### **Danda of Dharma Raja**

Dee Dee, as Mini has nicknamed it, is the celestial weapon of her godly father, Dharma Raja. With it, she can cast illusions, spells of protection, and see through illusions, although it comes at the cost of a very steep learning curve. Dee dee prefers to be in its compact mirror form, but can also take the form of a 4-foot tall staff. During the battle of Lanka, Mini's Pandava powers are enhanced greatly, which allows her to create shadows and stronger force fields. At the end of *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*, Dee dee is destroyed when Kara uses the astra.

####  **Seeing through illusions**

With the compact mirror, Mini can see through illusions by looking at the reflection of the illusion in the mirror. The mirror also translates other languages, such as the language the dead speak.

#### **Force fields**

Mini can create impenetrable force field bubbles around multiple people and objects. She can manipulate the force field by using a magic word in an Indic language, turning it’s outside into a mirror-like exterior, which makes people looking at the forcefield see their own reflection. She can create transparent violet shields.

#### **Invisibility**

Mini can turn other people and herself invisible by saying the word "adrishya". However, she doesn't like using this power, as it seems dishonest to her.

#### **Shadow Magic**

During the battle of Lanka, Mini is able to create violet-tinged shadows that pour from the top of her death danda, which she can manipulate into striking down enemies.

### **Pandava Mind Link**

Mini is able to communicate telepathically with her sisters. It can be blocked out, and is typically easier to do the better you know somebody. So far, Mini has used the Pandava mind link with Aru and Brynne.

### **Night Flame**

A glowing black rose that makes it so no one is ever lost in the dark, Mini was given this by Agni as a gift. It turned into a black hair barrette as soon as she took it, and she uses it to keep her bangs out of her face.

### **A Minute of Time**

Kamadeva’s gift to Mini is a small golden box that is a minute of time, which can erase a full minute of words you didn’t mean to say. It is apparently very handy for first-time crushes.

## Trivia

* Mini doesn’t know if she’s allergic or not, but she’s afraid of bees
* Mini is Half-Filipino Half-Indian, which reflects off of the author Roshani Chokshi who is also half Filipina and half-Indian
* Her favorite book is *The Golden Compass*
* Mini has a Top Ten Ways I Don’t Want To Die List - #1 is death by halitosis and #3 is death by drowning
* Her favorite meal is pancit
* She has acrophobia
* Her brother was originally thought to be the Pandava brother of the family
* According to the Sleeper (after he listened to Mini’s heartbeats), her father wears a cross beneath his shirt and an agimat necklace passed down from his family in the Philippines, her brother hides a photo of his soccer teammate beneath his pillow and swore Mini to secrecy when she found it, and her mother’s hair smells like sandalwood
* The underside of Mini’s wrist would look good with a yellow stripe (similar to the stripes of Yellow Stripe and Red Stripe, two naga guards), meaning her skin tone looks good with the yellow color
* Mini calls her grandmother on the Filipino side her lola
* She was named "Yamini" after her maternal-grandmother
* **Yamini** is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian popular feminine given **name**, which means "starry night". It also means, "Artistic", and "Light in the dark".
* **Kapoor** is a name of a clan in the Khatri community, whose ancestor is said to have been called Kapoor Chand
* **Mercado** is a name that means 'market' in Spanish and goes back to Latin Mercatus, with the same meaning.
* **Lopez** is a Spanish surname meaning "Son of Lope", Lope itself being a Spanish given name deriving from Latin lupus, meaning "wolf".
* Mini likes watching rom-coms
* Mini has the same last name as one of the characters in *The Gilded Wolves* trilogy (also written by Roshani Chokshi), Enrique Mercado-Lopez. It is implied in *Aru Shah and the City of Gold* that Enrique is Mini's great-great-great-grandfather.
* It is hinted in *Aru Shah and the Song of Death* Mini had her shoelaces tied together when somebody offered to tie them for her, then tripped over them

As confirmed by one of Roshani Chokshi's Instagram AMAs for the Pandava sisters:

* Mini’s zodiac sign is Pisces (♓️), a water sign and mutable sign associated with fish; more specifically she's a Pisces sun and Virgo rising. Her birthday is February 29, notable for being a day that only happens on leap years, meaning she was born on a leap year, which most likely means she was born in 2004
* Whenever she washes her hands, Mini mentally sings "So Fresh, So Clean" by OutKast
* Mini's pet peeve is people who walk into an occupied elevator without asking if it's okay with the other people
* Mini once told Aru and Brynne that they gave her a sense of power, but it made Brynne stress bake, and although Aru tried to say something nice, she kept doing it in a Jeff Goldblum impersonation, which Mini told her didn't count
* Mini's favorite cartoon is Gravity Falls
* Her comfort food is Arroz caldo, otherwise known as Aroskaldo, a Filipino rice and chicken gruel
* Mini's brother was happy for her when she turned out to be a Pandava sister
* Her mother made Mini take piano for 6 years. She didn't like the keys because she didn't know what was on them, but she knows how to play "Für Elise" (and only "Für Elise")