Prince was born into a very wealthy family in Idduki, Kerala, which made their fortune from the booze business. Prince's family had shops all over India, from small Toddy shops, to town and city bars, to full-scale nightclubs in Cochin, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Overall, they probably had close to four hundred shops.
Prince was Bibin and Maria Martin's first and only child. After 15 years of marriage, relentless trying and many treatments, scientific and superstitious, a child was born. Bibin was 45 and Maria was 40 when Prince was born. From the minute he popped out, he was pampered and raised like a, well, prince. He was a troublemaker. At home, at school, at the local cricket park, anywhere and everywhere. But no one cared because of who his daddy is.
He used to rage at cricket when his team let him down at school, simple matters made him rage so much that one day he came home with a letter saying he had hospitalised his teammate, after beating his head open with a cricket bat.
Prince was eventually expelled from school despite all of his father's influence. The people protested to kick him out, threatening to remove their children from the school, and the school had to comply. Prince was kicked out. Soon after, he was also kicked out of his cricket academy for under-10s after he swore at the coach and busted his kneecap with a cricket ball.
Soon his father decided to give up the idea of schooling his little prince, and decided to teach him practical skills and business matters. Making his fathe rproud was the only thing this little shit cared about, even if it meant killing people. Bibin taught him everything he knew, and by the time Prince was eighteen, he had begun running nearly a quarter of his father's business with his own team.
Prince, as an adult, was an even bigger degenerate. He would sit in the office, "overseeing" the affairs, occasionally stepping in to swoon clients into making deals and running production lines. Mostly, he bribed these sad old men with prostitutes, free drinks and cigs, all of which he indulged in too.
When he was around 20, he moved out of Bibin and Maria's house and lived on his own. This destroyed his already lacking personality. Despite being such a modern pad, his apartment was always full of takeaways, bras, empty booze bottles, and remnants of intercourse. His assistant used to report to Bibin, telling him how Prince had a new girl around every night and his degenerate actions.
Bibin didn't want to believe what his assistant said. But soon enough, it was impossible to ignore. Prince stopped showing up at the office. When he did, he'd walk in with sunglasses still on from the night before, his collar stained with lipstick and a cocktail still sloshing in a takeout cup. He was twenty-three and had already acquired the reputation of a sleaze. Not just in Cochin. Word travelled. Fast.
Clients began pulling out. Some nightclub licenses came under review. Prince, in his arrogance, tried to bribe government officials the way he bribed bouncers and bartenders. Bibin had to intervene, quietly paying double to fix the mess.
At twenty-four, Prince had a minor celebrity status among a certain kind of people: D-grade film stars, wannabe influencers, small-time peddlers and sleazy businessmen. He threw extravagant parties at his penthouse—mounds of cocaine on imported coffee tables, sex in the pool, EDM that made the walls tremble. A few girls had to be taken to the hospital. One of them was underage. Bibin had to send people to bury that story before it made the news.
But Maria saw the change in her husband. His face aged ten years in three. She once walked into his study and found him crying—not just weeping, but sobbing like a boy. He had tried. He really had.
It all came to a head when Prince, in a drunken blackout, took a company SUV on a joyride through Marine Drive and crashed it into a flower stall, almost killing the vendor. The police showed up but didn't arrest him. The cops knew who he was. Bibin did too. But that night, something shifted.
"I don't know who you are anymore," Bibin said, standing over Prince's mangled figure in the hospital bed. "I gave you everything. I gave you this life. And you've shat on all of it."
Prince blinked under the morphine. He didn't seem to understand.
That was the last time Bibin spoke to his son as a father.
Two months later, Prince found his company keycards deactivated. His name was scrubbed from the books. Properties signed in his name were revoked. The penthouse rent was mysteriously tripled. When he called the legal team, he was told everything had been "restructured under senior management."
The only thing that remained was a single night club in Kochi, a run-down property Prince had begged his father for when he was twenty-one. Bibin let him keep it. Let him see what it felt like to build something from scratch.
He failed. Spectacularly.
With dwindling revenue, the club became a haven for shady dealers and out-of-town escorts. One night, a brawl broke out. Two were stabbed, one critically. Prince didn't bother showing up. He was too drunk, too high, too busy shagging a Russian tourist he didn't know the name of.
Eventually, the club was shut down. Authorities cited "uncontrollable hazards to public safety."
Prince had nothing left.
No friends, no lovers. Just a string of people he owed money to. The dealers stopped being nice. Even the bouncers at places he once owned refused to let him in. His looks were bloated and bleary. His once-glossy hair was thinning, matted. His teeth yellowed from smoke and whiskey. He was only twenty-six.
One day, Bibin's lawyer visited Prince's apartment. Not Bibin. Just the lawyer.
"You've been officially disowned. Your inheritance will go to charity, or a trust, or whoever Mr. Martin deems worthy. There's nothing for you. Please stop calling."
The lawyer glanced at the room before leaving. The place looked and smelled like a brothel with a trash problem.
Maria tried, once. She came quietly, when Bibin was in Dubai for business. She left a lunchbox at the doorstep. Chicken stew, parotta, a small slice of jackfruit halwa. Prince never opened the door. He just shouted something incoherent from inside.
Maria went home and cried for hours, clinging to the empty box she brought back.
It was a rainy Tuesday in September when Prince stumbled out of a bar near Kaloor Junction, alone. He'd tried to charm a group of college students earlier that evening. They laughed at him. One of them called him a "washed-up pornstar without a camera." It hurt. More than he expected.
He had spent the last of his cash on drinks. No one offered to pay his Uber. He'd pawned his watch months ago. Now, he walked. Drunk. Shirt half-buttoned, feet soaked, reeking of rum and rejection.
He wandered across the intersection, staring up at the rain like it owed him something. A hollow, aimless man.
Then came the sound.
A loud honk. Skidding tires. Metal on bone.
And then—
Silence.
People screamed. A few phones were pulled out. One man ran to the crumpled figure lying twisted on the pavement. Blood pooled into the street like a halo of irony.
The truck driver didn't flee. He slumped against his door, shocked. "He walked right into me," he kept saying. "Didn't even look. Just... walked in."
When the body was finally identified, the news reports didn't even mention Prince's last name. Just "local man hit and killed at Kaloor Junction."
Bibin received a call from the police. He didn't speak. Just handed the phone to Maria and walked away.
That night, Bibin poured himself a drink—the first he'd had in years. He raised it, not in toast, but in resignation. A cruel, bitter end to a chapter he never wanted to write.
Maria, alone in her prayer room, lit a candle and whispered her son's name. Not with anger. Not even with pain. Just a mother's last goodbye.