The spat within AAP has revealed that Kejriwal rivals are scheming, power-hungry men who would go to any extent for retribution and power.

A polyglot once visited Akbar’s darbar and challenged him to find out his mother tongue and roots. The next morning, while he was sleeping, Birbal threw a bucket of water on the visitor. The startled man woke up and in anger began abusing in his mother tongue. His cover was blown and identity revealed.

Several centuries later, Arvind Kejriwal has once again proved Birbal right: anger reveals the real man. And if you want to know where a person comes from, his background, his upbringing and moral and cultural values; if you want to look beyond his mask, give him an opportunity to curse.

Like Chaudhary Devi Lal, who once used an entire array of Virat Kohliesque expletives against his boss VP Singh in telephone conversations with Arun Shourie (who reproduced some of them in his Indian Express editorial), Kejriwal has shown that he is just another aam aadmi, the archetypical Indian man on the streets with a bad temper and an ugly tongue. Everything else is just a façade.

Kaminey, kaminpanti, pichwade pe laat, per se, are not shocking adjectives or statements of intent. Vishal Bhardwaj, Honey Singh and Dharmendra have peppered our popular culture with their liberal use. But it is disgusting to hear a person like Kejriwal—IIT grad, IRS, anti-corruption crusader, self-proclaimed Gandhian and Anna bhakt and chief minister— use them for persons like Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Anand Kumar, some of the top public intellectuals of our generation.

It is evident that Kejriwal has touched a linguistic low in anger and frustration. He was set-up by the volunteer who called him up, sweet-talked to him and massaged his ego with comparisons with Narendra Modi. Sufficiently aroused, Kejriwal just couldn’t resist the temptation of baring his feelings against his rivals. All these point to a vengeful, egoistic person, who lacks patience, verbal etiquette, a cool head and the wisdom to avoid traps. With these glaring fatal flaws in his character, it is unlikely that Kejriwal will go too far in public life and politics.

The alleged conversation reveals that apart from these fragilities, Kejriwal has all the traits of a typical politician. That he was allegedly willing to “walk away” with his 66 MLAs and form a new party shows that he is an opportunist masquerading as a man of principles. Much more than his kameney, Kejriwal’s ‘hum satta ke liye nahin, janata ki seva karne aaye hain’ now sounds like a repulsive gaali. For, here is a man who was willing to break his own party, ditch volunteers, colleagues and stab everyone in the back to ensure that he clings to power.

Had his supporters and Delhi voters known all this, it is likely they would have done exactly what Kejriwal intends to do now with un salon ko (his favourite word for his rivals): peeche laat de kar bahar nikal dete.

But Kejriwal alone is not the villain of this dark, ugly farce. The spat has revealed his rivals as scheming, power-hungry men who would go to any extent for retribution and power. That Kejriwal was forced to anoint them with choice adjectives, suggests they must have done something really disgusting to trigger his outrage. The fact that these men, considered role models till a few days ago, are disrobing, abusing each other in public means there must be something really reprehensible in their nature, conduct and transactions. As the adage goes, in the dirty hamaam of AAP, everybody is naked.

The repulsive, vile men in AAP would be hoping that their stings, allegations, mud-throwing and name-calling would help them win the ongoing internal war. They must be really insane to believe that the AAP will survive this public dismemberment, the ugly evisceration that will expose their deepest, darkest, mutilated parts.

Kejriwal may go on to form a new party; he may cling to power for five years; Yadav and Bhushan may gain control over the party organisation, but they would linger in politics and public only as cruel reminders of betrayal of faith and hope, of a dream that turned out to be a nightmare.

Unfortunately, the K in Kejriwal will henceforth just remind us of the word he has used for his rivals.