The first time I saw him, it wasn't through a flickering television screen or a shaky viral clip. It was real.
I stood on the crumbling edge of a rooftop in Mumbai, watching smoke coil upward from the docks. Something had exploded—another "accident" that the officials would blame on faulty wiring or careless laborers. But as I narrowed my eyes, I caught movement near the fire. A shadow. Metallic.
And then he landed.
The ground trembled beneath me as a red-and-gold figure descended like a blazing star. With a hiss, the helmet split open, revealing the familiar smirk of Tony Stark. Iron Man—alive, undeniable, no longer confined to paper or rumor.
Around him, dockworkers erupted in cheers. Their voices echoed off the warehouses as Stark tossed out jokes with the ease of a man untouchable. The saboteurs—local thugs with guns and arrogance—lay defeated, their trucks reduced to twisted wreckage in minutes.
I watched in silence as firelight danced on his armor.
This was the West's idea of salvation: genius clothed in wealth, technology raised as a new god. A world that believed redemption could be forged in steel and sarcasm.
But I knew better.
I had watched empires rise on inventions greater than this, only to crumble beneath greed. The weapons changed, the names shifted, but the story was always the same. Technology can protect, it can build—but without dharma, without truth and balance, it will fall.
As the crowd roared, I whispered to myself, "The world may bow to Iron Men, but dharma asks for more than iron."
That night, the dream returned. Not of cosmic oceans or radiant palaces, but of dice cast in a royal court. A man stood there—calm, unyielding, his integrity unbroken even as the world schemed to shatter him. Yudhishthira.
I woke with a start, heart pounding, my thin blanket soaked in sweat.
If I was Krishna reborn, then the world, too, would need its Pandavas. Heroes not born of wealth or armor, but of character. And the first among them would have to be Yudhishthira—the embodiment of truth, justice, and balance.
I wondered: Where could he possibly be, in this fractured world?
The answer came sooner than I expected.
A week later, I was at the market, helping vendors balance scales of grain and vegetables. That's when I noticed him. A boy no older than eighteen, selling newspapers from a battered cart. His clothes were plain, his sandals thin, but his eyes… they carried a weight I recognized.
He didn't smile at customers, didn't shout to draw attention like the others. He simply stood, steady as stone, as if life had tested him already and he refused to yield.
His name was Ravi Sharma.
His father had been a dockworker, a union man who stood against the local mafia. One night, they found his body floating in the river. The police called it an accident. Everyone knew better.
Since then, Ravi had supported his mother and younger sister with nothing but hard work. No shortcuts. No corruption. Just relentless perseverance.
When I heard his story, something inside me stirred.
Yudhishthira.
No—he was not yet that man. But the seed was there. Honesty. Integrity. A refusal to be corrupted even when the world pressed down.
That night, I approached him.
"Rough day?" I asked, nodding at the stack of unsold papers.
He looked up, suspicion flickering in his gaze before he shrugged. "Every day's rough."
I smiled faintly. "But you don't quit."
His brow furrowed, as if unsure why a stranger cared. "Someone has to keep trying."
The words cut deeper than any Chitauri blade. They weren't spoken with pride, or bitterness. Only truth.
I stepped closer. "The world will test you, Ravi. Again and again. You'll be doubted, threatened, even broken. But you must never abandon truth. Do you understand?"
His eyes widened, confusion mixing with something else—respect, perhaps fear.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
I almost said Arjun. But the truth was heavier, impossible to deny.
"Someone who sees what you can become."
The test came sooner than either of us expected.
Late that evening, as Ravi pushed his cart home, the streets grew too quiet. Shadows thickened in the alleys ahead.
They emerged—three men, tattoos curling around their arms, faces half-hidden. Mafia enforcers. The same kind who had murdered his father.
"Well, well," one sneered. "Little Sharma, carrying pocket change. Your father thought he could cheat us. Maybe you'll pay his debt instead?"
Ravi's fists clenched, but his voice stayed calm. "We owe you nothing."
The thug laughed. "Everyone owes us." He shoved Ravi hard against the wall, papers scattering across the dirt.
I moved forward, then stopped myself. This was his trial. Yudhishthira was not forged in comfort—he was tempered in fire.
Ravi trembled, fear plain on his face. But then he straightened, blood on his lip, and said with quiet defiance:
"Take what you want. But you will never take my honesty. That—I will never give you."
The words rang through the alley like the toll of a temple bell.
The thugs hesitated, thrown off by his defiance. That was my moment.
I struck fast. The first didn't see me until the iron rod cracked against his arm, his knife clattering to the ground. The second lunged, but I twisted, driving my foot into his ribs. The third tried to flee; I grabbed his collar and slammed him into the wall.
When the dust cleared, they writhed on the ground, groaning.
Ravi stared at me, awe and disbelief warring in his eyes.
"You… you fought like—like you've done this before."
I wiped the blood from my knuckles, my voice calm. "I have fought men like them my whole life."
"Why help me?" he asked.
"Because truth must be defended. And because you passed your first test."
"Test?"
I stepped closer, meeting his gaze. "You stood against them—not with fists, but with words. You refused to sell your honesty, even under threat. That is the heart of Yudhishthira."
His jaw trembled. "I'm just a newspaper seller."
"For now," I said. "But one day, you will be more."
As I walked away that night, I thought of Tony Stark again. Somewhere, he was basking in the glow of cameras, proof that technology could save the world.
But I knew a deeper truth.
Technology dazzles. Dharma endures.
My path was clear. While the West forged suits of iron, I would forge something older, stronger: men and women tempered in truth.
The Pandavas of this age.
And Ravi Sharma—honest, unyielding, scarred by loss yet unbroken—would be the first.
In the shadows, dharma began to stir.
And within those shadows, war waited.