Aiden Acharya

Ammamma (by Brynne)

Snob (by Aru)

Aiden I-Only-Like-My-Camera Acharya (by Aru)

Artiste (Brynne Rao) (Aru shah)|affiliation=The Otherworld
The Potatoes|parents=Malini (mother)
Mr. Acharya (father)

Annette (step mother)|eye=Dark Brown With Flashes of Blue Iridescence
Atlanta, Georgia|species=Half-Apsara|other\_relatives=Rudy (cousin)

Urvashi (aunt)|image1=

* Original
* and the End of Time]]''|appears\_in
* Gifted Abilities
* Magical Items
*Aru Shah and the End of Time*

*Aru Shah and the Song of Death*

*Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*

*Aru Shah and the City of Gold*

*Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality*|birth\_date=November 6|image\_credits=ReadRiordan|special\_traits=Smolder power
Salsa}}**Aiden Acharya** is a major character in *Aru Shah and the End of Time* and a major character in *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes* and *Aru Shah and the City of Gold.* He is the modern-day reincarnation of Princess Draupadi, wife of the five Pandavas, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he attends the private middle school Augustus Day.

## History

### Early Life

Aiden Acharya was born on November 6, presumably in the year 2003. He was raised in an unspecified place, probably in the Otherworld, where his parents argued a lot before eventually divorcing.

### Augustus Day

Aiden moved to Aru’s school right before winter break; this is because he’s rich, so he’s allowed to do stuff like that. He was very popular at school. Aru herself said that he spent one second in the school and was more popular than Aru would ever be, even if she got cookie cake to homeroom for the whole year, and a real life elephant to class.

## The Pandava Quintet

### *Aru Shah and the End of Time*

One afternoon after school, Aiden Acharya was walking in front of Aru Shah after she read a letter from Mini. He just enrolled in Aru's school the previous week, Aru found that weird since winter break was just about to start. Apparently, Aru found Aiden attractive and was thinking of him when she accidentally bumped into his backpack. According to Poppy Lopez, the Acharyas were super rich, Aru was nervous about talking to him since she actually found him good-looking. Aiden was with his mother and he saw Aru smiling and falling down, so he went over to say 'Hi'. But Aru was so nervous, she said that she knows where he lives and runs home. On the following Saturday, Aiden was surprised at witnessing a massive wolf carrying a heavy golden bow and arrow, the wolf changed into a girl before changing into a bluebird and flying off. Aru was confused that he was able to see something from the Otherworld.

### *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*

Aiden goes along with Brynne, Mini, and Aru to clear their names, since they got falsely accused of stealing Kamadeva's bow and arrow, and travels through the glittering and highly dangerous Naga Realm, to clear their names and secure their positions as Pandavas in the Otherworld. He goes there as a student of the otherworld and is chosen by Boo to go with them. Every time that someone says Pandavas, he immediately corrects them, saying he isn't a Pandava (until the end of the book, when Kamadeva reveals that Aiden is actually the reincarnation of Draupadi, the wise and beautiful princess who was married to all five of the Pandava brothers). (Yeesh, talk about awkward)

Later, in a bonus chapter, it is mentioned that he goes to an Otherworld middle school Halloween party along with Aru, Mini and Brynne. He wears a dark green shirt and dark jeans, saying that he dressed up as 'incognito Peter Parker' when asked by Aru.

### *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*

Fifteen year old Aiden Acharya and his friends are sent on a mission to rescue two "targets," one of whom is about to utter a prophecy that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Turns out the targets, a pair of twins, are the newest Pandava sisters, though the prophecy says that one sister is not true. When the Pandavas fail to prevent the prophecy from reaching the Sleeper's ears, the heavenly attendants ask them to step aside. But, instead of stepping aside, Aru, Mini, Brynne, Aiden, and Rudy go on an unofficial quest to find the real Kalpavriksha (a tree that can grant wishes) as according to Sheela's prophecy. He continues his streak of denying being a Pandava, going so far as to call himself "Pandava-adjacent" (and Rudy, by virtue of being his cousin, "Pandava-adjacent-adjacent"). Throughout the book, it seems as though he develops feelings for Aru, although to what extent it is yet to be seen.

### *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*

Aiden is first seen standing outside the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture in Atlanta, Georgia, along with Mini and Brynne, when Aru first teleported back from the House of the Sleeper with Kara. Aiden goes to hug Aru, but stops and notices Kara who has fainted on the grass. Aru tells them Kara is the Sleeper's daughter.

The others are initially shocked at this recent development, but then they eventually recover from it, with Brynne whipping up a bunch of different deserts and Aiden carrying Kara inside Aru's home. Despite that, it can be easily seen that the Mini, Brynne and Aiden are the ones with more surprises. Aru learns that two whole months have passed since she had been abducted by the Sleeper, which explained the warm weather. When asked by Brynne how she escaped from the House of the Sleeper, Aru doesn't answer, but she asks about her mother, Krithika. At this, the two Pandava sisters exchanged looks and prompted Aru to start off first.

Between bites of the delicious deserts cooked by Brynne, Aru first starts off with Kara and her history, which included everything Kara had told her. When Aru voices her question about Kara's history, Brynne raises another explanation. Apparently, in the Otherworld, the rich families can pay a timekeeper to take a baby and put it in stasis until the parents are ready to raise it. The timekeeper, can't change time, but they can hold pockets of it, and it is a whole another level of magic. After some more questions from Mini, Aru interrupts her two sisters, informing them that the Sleeper's army is on marching to Lanka, the City of Gold, at that very moment. They've been planning to attack on Lanka within that week. Instead of the shocked masks she expects her sisters to wear, the sisters wear masks of resignation, since they already know that, courtesy of the invitation that Lord Kubera has sent them. When questioned by Aru, Mini goes to show the invitation Lord Kubera sent them, but Brynne stops her, pointing to Kara, since the two sisters still don't find reason to trust the newcomer. Aru goes out of her way to tell them that she trusts Kara, despite her being the daughter of the Sleeper. Then she notices the sudden quietness of the whole place and inquires her sisters of the others, namely her young Pandava sisters Nikita and Sheela and the Naga Prince who accompanied them on their previous quest, aka Rudy.

Brynne and Mini fill in Aru on everything that happened after she was abducted. As it turns out, Boo had tracked down the twins' parents and he used his status as a member of the Council of Guardians to speed up their immigration paperwork. Aiden then interrupts the sisters and show them a holographic scene of all that happened. The scene also shows the sudden gold rain that occurs, which mainly consists of literal golden coins falling from the enchanted sky of the Night Bazaar, and a loud voice announcing the following:

Right after the message, the two Pandavas and Aiden continue to fill Aru in on all that happened, finally stopping at the topic of Kubera's invitation, while discussing Kubera's grand, golden *Nairrata* army. To show Aru the invitation, Aiden flips a coin on the table and a golden mongoose appears on the table, out of which a deep and smooth voice comes out. The voice invites them to Lanka, the City of Gold in three days time and demands them to compete in the trials of Lord Kubera and win the Nairrata army as the reward. While talking about the invitation, and how Aru is the supposed traitor, Mini and Brynne stumble upon the topic of how people think Boo is still the traitor, and Aru confirms their suspicions. She tells all that she saw in the Tree of Wishes, but none of the sisters believe her, which makes Aru all the more frustrated.

In an attempt to change the topic, Brynne asks Aru what she wished on the Tree and and Aru admits that she doesn't remember. This makes Brynne all the more suspicious and Aru all the more frustrated, which results in Brynne ultimately attacking Aru, though fortunately, Aiden and Mini manage to stop a potential war between the two sisters. Aru confesses that the only thing her mind can conjure up is a vision of snow and a bridge and then Mini realizes that the reason for Aru's intriguingly selective amnesia is because of the curse Shukra, the Guardian of the Bridge of Forgetting gave Aru on her first ever quest to the Kingdom of Death nearly three years ago.

After informing Aiden and Brynne about all that happened on the Bridge of Forgetting all those years, Aru repeats her first voiced question about the disappearance of her mother Krithika P. Shah, to which she finally gets her answers from her sisters.

All this while, all the four Pandavas and Aiden have been unbeknownst to the fact that Kara had woken up, and had heard part of their conversation.

At first, Brynne is extremely miffed and untrustworthy of the new daughter of the Sleeper, going as far as imprudently and blatantly refusing the help of Kara, and challenging her to prove herself in a fight. Kara, surprisingly, accepts and there and then, a fight between the Daughter of Vayu and the Daughter of the Sleeper breaks out. To entertain herself, and partly as a joke, Aru even goes to make popcorn to watch the show in peace, something that disdains Mini, as she is concerned for both of the sisters.

Aiden served as a peacemaker throughout the trials of Kubera, and, he was responsible for choosing the more beautiful goddess (Saranyu or Chaya) in their third trial, to which he remarked that the more beautiful goddess would be the one who healed Kara and granted them passage through the halls of the Sun. Rudy said, "Bro, that was superb," as a response to Aiden's answer. He managed to push back the Sleeper's army in the Battle of Lanka, and lost a scimitar in the process (A Nairrata soldier lent him his sword). After the events in Lanka, and during the eight-month gap between the end of the quest, and Aru's fifteenth birthday, Aiden and his mother played host to the Potatoes on Sunday nights, which were dubbed, "Potato Movie Nights". He tried to make the others watch documentaries, but was shot down. During Aru's birthday, Kara confessed her feelings about him to him, to which he told her that he only saw her as a friend. When Aru demanded an explanation to why he was acting like this, he kissed her. Then, after Brynne sent Aru the mind message to return to the party immediately, the Sleeper froze him in time, as he realized that he and Aru had been alone together, and did not like that fact. After the disastrous party, he told Aru that he would stand by her side while she searched for the amrita, along with Brynne, Mini and Rudy, after the Pandava sisters lost their weapons.

## Physical Appearance

Aiden is Indian-American, and extremely attractive, due to being the son of an *apsara*. He’s mentioned to have dimples, curly black hair that occasionally sticks up like horns when he runs his hands over it, a shock of dark curls over his forehead, dark eyes framed by even darker eyelashes, a nice smell similar to clean laundry, and sandy skin that looks golden-brown in the afternoon light. His dusky eyes, seemingly similar to 'an endless expanse of night and dusk', have flashes of blue that remind Aru of the sky, which are likely only noticeable when you look closely. He’s taller than Aru, by “at least a foot”, although that might have been an exaggeration on Aru’s part. He is also said to have a 'velvety' voice.

Aiden prefers darker clothes and looks like "an elegant shadow". His daily attire consists of a dark green long sleeved hoodie, faded jeans and bright red sneakers, even though starting *Aru Shah and the City of Gold*, he dons on a more all-black attire. Normally he doesn't care about his appearance and just wears whatever is in his closet.

## Personality

Aiden is a very quiet person. He is introspective and doesn't talk a lot. His cousin calls him "dark & broody." He is also very passionate and empathizes with his mother a lot, often thinking about her and her well-being, rather than his. And when matters are important and the situation is dangerous, he is a serious person

Despite his introverted demeanor, Aiden is playful, often joking around with Brynne, and later the others. He is also acts proactively; when he tries to get the group to work together unprompted. He is an asserted person as well, despite his immediate kindness.

## Abilities and Tools

<tabber>
Apsara Abilities=

* **Smolder Power:** All apsaras, as Aiden puts it, have a kind of hypnotic power that makes them impossible to look away from and make people follow them, and according to Aiden, 'andIcandothattooandthatwayyoucanstealtheticket'. He doesn't like using this power, though, since he's seen his aunts and uncles (on the apsara side) take it too far. He says to Aru that it didn't seem right to do that to someone when they didn't agree to it.

- **Cursing:** Queen Draupadi was known for her sharp tongue and the curses she threw upon people who messed with her. As her reincarnation, Aiden inherited this ability. He once cursed a group of bullies when he was younger.

* **Camera**: According to Brynne, Aiden takes pictures of everything; he considers himself a photojournalist. The camera, Shadowfax, is “kind of dumpy-looking” according to Aru, and according to Aiden, it’s a Hasselblad his dad owned way back in 1998, when he had dreams of being a photographer. A mechanic in the Night Bazaar modified the internal mechanism of the SLR and converted it into the modern, digital SLR as well as added an entire Bluetooth chip, making it so the photos don’t have to be developed but automatically get sent to both Aiden’s phone and laptop. The phone is for checking out, and the laptop is for editing.
	+ **Fire Battery**: Agni's gift to Aiden, a “fire battery” which ensures that the power will never run out and that the camera will always have enough memory.
	+ **Night Visions**: Aiden's camera has “night vision,” which allows him to take pictures in the dark that come out right.
	+ **Emergency Accessory Transformation**: By pressing a golden button on top of his camera, the camera, along with the bag, folds up until it becomes a watch on his wrist. By touching the watch, his camera bag and camera return to his hip.
	+ **Sharp Vision**: By looking through his camera, Aiden can see far away things that look like specks to other people.
* **Enchanted Twin Scimitars**: Aiden is exceptionally good at using sword-fighting, and so he uses two enchanted twin scimitars as his main weapon of choice.
	+ **Leather Bands**: His scimitars normally stay in the form of two leather bands on both of his wrists, but can be activated, with one turn of his hands.

## Relationships

### Friends

* Brynne Rao
* Aru Shah
* Mini Kapoor

Brynne and Aiden are pretty good friends and both seem to consider their friendship as one between a brother and sister, which makes things awkward when they found out they used to be married. They seemed to have grown up in the same place (probably in the Otherworld) and one day, Aiden found Brynne being bullied for her asura heritage, so he stepped in and cursed the bullies, starting their friendship. They even have nicknames for each other; 'Ammamma' for Aiden and 'Bee' for Brynne.

Aiden and Aru had a rocky start to their relationship. Aru, having a crush on him, bumped into him one day, and in their first mutual interaction, she word-vomited on him and ran away. When they meet again in *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, he seems somewhat embarrassed when Brynne lets on he talked about that encounter with her in front of Aru. Throughout the book they become friends. A few times, Aiden says that he obviously doesn’t feel romantic feelings for Aru, and Aru, embarrassed, agrees. A significant step in their relationship occurs when Aru notices Aiden sulking in her lawn during her birthday party and he brings her along on his mission to Parent Trap his parents; however, Aru helps show him that what he really cares about is whether his mom is happy and loves herself.

There is also a part in *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*, where Aiden, Brynne, and Aru are discussing what happened previously, with their fight against Takshaka. Brynne and Aru were filling Aiden in, as Aiden had been knocked out. After Aru is done explaining what happened, Brynne says "A boy asked for Aru's number." To which Aiden responds saying, "Why?" Aiden's comment really hurt Aru, but she says sarcastically, "Wow, thanks." Aiden blushes and starts to say something, but Aru cuts him off.

Several times in *Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes*, he hints that he might have a crush on her, whether he recognizes it as such or not, like when he stares at her after she gets her new outfit from Nikita, when he implies that she's beautiful when she says Sohail, the chakora bird viewed her as hideous, or when after using the key, he openly stares at her for a full second, implying that the key has unlocked a feeling within him.

There is also a part of the beginning of the book where Sheela tells the story of Princess Draupadi (who was reincarnated into Aiden) and the 5 Pandava brothers. She ends her story with; "The only sad thing was that she loved one brother more than the rest." After she finished her story, her eyes flashed silver, according to Aru, and then said, mostly to herself; "Even lifetimes later?" Aiden then responded and said, "What are you talking about?" Sheela could possibly be referring to Aru (reincarnated soul of Arjuna), but we will have to see in the coming books. The reason why Sheela would be referring to Aru, and not Brynne, Mini, Nikita, or Sheela herself, is because Aiden only sees Brynne as his best friend, Mini as his sister, and the twins as his friends, leaving the only other person to be Aru. It is implied he has a crush on her, but it hasn't been confirmed.

At Home Depot, Rudy tells Aru that she must hate the place, with Aru replying that she doesn't hate the place, as she and her mother had fun times there. Rudy invited Aru to his palace, in which she is originally excited about, as no boys have ever invited her anywhere. However, she saw Mini stop for a moment, then continue, and she immediately felt bad, as she knew Mini had a crush on Rudy. She politely turns Rudy down, and tries to catch up with the other girls. As she is leaving, she overhears Rudy tell Aiden that he thought Aru would hate Home Depot. Aru imagines Aiden fiddling with his camera when he says "Then I guess you don't really know her."

Aiden and Mini serve as the respective peacemakers of their friend group. They bond briefly over knowing about various diseases while riding on the wind gazelles to Kamadeva, and later Mini comes to view him as a brother.
### Family

#### Malini

Aiden cares deeply about his mother. He feels bad for the fact that she got divorced from Mr. Acharya, since he's basically a reminder forever of her failed romance, and he's somewhat jaded towards the Otherworld as a result from that.

#### Mr. Acharya

Aiden seems to be less close with his father than with his mother, but he lives with him every other weekend and was given his treasured camera, Shadowfax, from his father, although he thinks that was probably just because his dad didn’t want it anymore, in the same way he thinks his dad didn’t want him and his mother anymore. He feels more sad and wistful than angry and upset about that, but that might just be his tendency to internalize stuff.

#### Urvashi

Aiden and Urvashi care for each other; she’s sympathetic towards his family situation and doesn’t seem to be overly judgmental of his mother.

#### Rudy

Aiden often seems somewhat irritated and tired of his cousin's obnoxious and loud behaviors, partly because they are polar opposites. Rudy, on the other hand, calls his cousin 'broody'. However, at the end of the day, both are shown to somewhat care for each other.

## Etymology

* 'Aiden' is an Irish name, meaning born of fire/intelligent. 'Born of Fire', could refer to the fact that Queen Draupadi, his previous avatar, was born of fire. Intelligent, of course, refers to the fact that Aiden is mature, wise and intelligent.
* 'Acharya' is a Brahman surname, originating from the Sanskrit *acharya*, meaning "one who knows and teaches right conduct"

## Trivia

* Aiden’s mom, who works as a microbiologist, gifted him a big book of diseases.
* Aiden’s dad is a lawyer; he’s going to practice in New York after he gets married to Aiden’s stepmom, Annette.
* Aiden carries a tiny packet of Kleenex in his camera bag.
* He was named "Aiden" because his parents couldn't decide on a name, and looked up names on the Internet.
* Aiden's mother Malini taught him how to waltz.
* The meaning of his name refers to the birth story of his previous avatar.
* Aiden always keeps a bag of candy and spare candy bars, but "they are only for emergency".
* Apparently, Aiden's habits like keeping Kleenex and candy with him all the time, earned him his nickname  *'Ammamma'* , which means 'Grandmother' in Telugu.
* Aiden is a Scorpio Sun and Cancer Moon
* He enjoys documentaries.
* For six months, he practiced the poker-chip trick that Le Chiffre did in Casino Royale.
* He isn't a morning person.

## ReadRiordan's Articles On Him

*Aiden is Aru Shah’s neighbor from across the street—a slightly older boy with a passion for photography. With his trusty camera, Shadowfax, always close at hand, he joins Aru, Mini, and Brynne (more on Brynne in a bit) on their quest to retrieve the god of love’s missing bow and arrow. Aiden is also armed with two enchanted scimitars that were passed down to him through his semidivine lineage. Despite being new to school, he is already incredibly popular. And Aru definitely does not have a crush on him.*