KEDAR NATH PANWAR II, the prince of Garhwal, is the half-British, half-Indian prodigal son and the constant head ache of the royal family, who is unexpectedly exiled to the Aldridge-Heaton residencial school in Dalhousie by the king.
HIMANI ARORA i...
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The black Mercedes steered through the hilly roads of Kumaon Hills, heading to the palace in Nainital, where the king Om Prakash Panwar resided along with his wife Devyani Panwar. The stars in the clear, velvety navy blue sky poked their heads through the deodar trees. The sky in Nainital was much clearer than in Delhi, where the city lights shone brighter than the stars. As Kedar remembers, Nainital is a serene beauty with its oak, pine, and deodar trees aligning the roadsides and green, crystalline lakes that urge anyone to jump in, even those who don't know how to swim. He noticed how the air became more breathable as they neared Nainital, unlike in the city, where it feels like you are inhaling gunpowder and dust each time you breathe. But he liked the city as much as he hated it. Delhi kept him busy, while Nainital drowned him in loneliness. There was so much to do in the city. He had a group of famous friends who slept on mattresses made of money, and none of them cared that he was a prince. He liked it-living a normal life even though it was among the elites. In Nainital, it was quite the opposite; he was recognised in an instant whenever he was out of his residence. The locals sometimes acted as if they were still in power and ruled the place, which irked him a lot.
'Are you mad?' Zoya's question woke Kedar from his trance. That's when he realised that they hadn't uttered a single word during that six hour journey. She was beside him, reading the collector's edition of Frankenstein with a brown cover with golden embellishments. Ravindr Nath, along with his personal secretary, was in the black Audi that travelled ahead of them.
'What do you think?' He asked.
'I think you're eager.'
'For what, exactly?'
'To know what Dada has in store for you.'
'What's he gonna do?' Kedar scoffed. 'Take my 'Crown Prince' title away? Because I drank, smoked, and hooked up? Well, I'm fine with stepping down, but who's gonna be the next king? Not Agastya. And definitely not Aryan.'
Aryan and Agastya, his cousins, besides being older than him, could never be the next king since they were his father's elder sisters' sons. In their family, the princesses and their descendants are generally cut off from the line of succession; only the King's male heir could ascend to the throne. But they would not want to become the king even if the king himself changed the rules and offered them the crown since Agastya's only aim is to be the captain of the Indian cricket team and Aryan is busy collecting every woman and every award, both in Bollywood and regional films. Just like Agastya and Aryan, it's the same in the case of most of his cousins—famous and filthy rich—not because of their so called royal genes, just like the airheaded royal family fandom describes it; they are successful because they have the money and the connections to kick-start their careers in their desired fields. Some of them, like his cousin Agastya, had natural talent and they worked hard for their success, but others, like Aryan, lacked that naturality.
'Or he'll send me into exile, maybe to an island where I cannot survive even a minute.'
'I don't know, Kedar; you should've thought about the consequences. What were you thinking while skipping school? That we wouldn't know? The king knows everything.'
