All my adult life, I survived without an iota of political influence or inclination. It was a comfortable decade of cruising along, discovering the phenomenon of growing up with the occasional inevitable shades of gray. I learnt to distance myself or deal with anguish of any kind. Arvind Kejriwal, you are ruining it for me now.

Let me explain in all my political mediocrity why.

We know you can speak. That vast majority voted you to the top post of Delhi Government as you managed to convince them about you being the force of nature that will usher in a geopolitical renaissance in this jaded city. I stood with you right when you started off on your campaign the last time. I found my mildly opinionated soul in resonating sync with your ideology.

You have been a raging disappointment since, except of course to the geographically proximal group of people who still believe in you.

Let’s be honest with each other. This city doesn’t care about Wi-Fi. Or virtually anything in your manifesto. We have lived before your time began, we will survive.

We need hope. We need something to look forward to. A reason to smile knowing we belong to a city that might just be home for most of us for the rest of our lives. And we only got one life to fix things.

You are feeding us gloom. You have been a constant source of misery on radio. You are the last thing a young inhabitant of Delhi wants to listen to when she starts her day to make all ends meet.

Why must you dissent with every other governing entity in this nation and force feed that grumble to us? Why must you kick up a fuss for every little finger that is pointed at your party? This country has seen accusations and convictions of far bigger magnitude and scale. Why must you act like that person in a relationship who must gather all historical baggage in an argument and throw it around aimlessly?

Your latest grouse is with the Delhi Police. I live in a decent locality of South Delhi. I have to say I know it’s a privilege. When I return late nights after watching a movie at 2 AM, I see cops with barricades on the roads. When I leave for early morning flights at 4 AM, they are still there. They close and open the colony gates at 11 PM and 5 AM respectively. They deal with drunks and criminals of all kinds all through the night, get run over and shot, get fired from the force for use of violence. For all 12 harsh months of Delhi. Sure a lot of people have issues with the way policing works here, but imagine these cops getting off our roads for one day. Any chance you saw The Dark Knight Rises? Remember what happens when citizens are the law? You will run away and so will I.

Delhi Police with all its faults and misdeeds, still makes me feel safe when I’m out on the road with my wife. You, Mr. Kejriwal, do not know how that feels. Step out in the middle of the night and try to walk 500 meters on Ring Road without your security. Let me know how that goes.

Sure, one can say the police is only doing its job. Agreed. What is yours then? To forget and look beyond everything that is in fact right with our lives to produce and channelize an anger against the system that somewhere is trying to work for and with us? Democracy has been in place without you playing any pivotal role in its establishment whatsoever. You are raising an evil inside perfectly happy people with busy lives via your constant criticism and blame game.

Give us hope Mr. Kejriwal. Corruption can wait to be wiped out a few more decades. Wi-Fi in Connaught Place can wait. Before anything else, let us know we have a leader, a figure who is willing to take the blame even if it’s not his to take and then turn it around. Rage is the easiest emotion to fuel, and you are in my eyes the master of it. Try something harder. Give us happiness. And if it’s our problem to find it, then I’m not sure why you or anyone must hold the post you do.

Delhi is known and loved for a few things. Hated for some as well. You are not doing anything for the long existing good bits, but you are firing up baseless ammo on the parts that every person of this city is familiar with, and not happy about. Do you not look at the mirror in the night and ask yourself if you offered any cheer to people you govern today? Or chaos is your only friend?

Delhi wants to be everything you want it to be. But that’s not going to happen by putting us in arms against systems that have been in place forever. A murderer’s death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment because there is hope. Of change. If I am Delhi, you have strapped me on the gallows and you are spitting on my existence every morning on the radio and TV.

This has to stop.