Many students in Kerala missed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address.
For Kerala's children, the Onam feast, and not the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech, was today's big attraction. But those who turned up for the live telecast of the PM's programme were in for a rude shock.
At the last minute, the state-run education channel Victers decided not to telecast the event. No one was notified - neither schools, nor the state government.
Though there was no official word on what went wrong, sources at IT@school, which runs the channel, said the telecast was cancelled as it was not made mandatory by the state government. The state BJP called it a "deliberate sabotage" by the Education Department.
At Thiruvananthapuram's Government Girls' Higher Secondary School Cottonhill, the teachers panicked when the telecast did not start even at 3.20 pm. Around 200 children had gathered for the show.
The school's headmistress, Sujana S, said, "The school doesn't subscribe to Doordarshan, which is airing the programme countrywide. The state officials had given schools like us the option of Victer channel."
In fact, the Director of Public Instruction in Kerala had issued a circular to that effect.
Soon after, most of the children drifted out. The last 15 were rounded up and taken to the laboratory, where the teachers switched to Internet to capture live television.
Nikita, one of the girls who watched the programme on internet later said, "I didn't understand much of anything because of the disturbance. But we were very keen to know more."
"Plus the language was Hindi, which was why understanding was difficult," added Taufeena, another student.
The language barrier is formidable in Kerala, where children are more conversant in English than Hindi.