As the North-East monsoon arrived in all its fury over coastal Tamil Nadu, it brought in its wake a deluge of memes and funny leave requests from students. These are flooding social media platforms.
But it is the way some District Collectors have responded to these student leave requests that is winning the Internet.
TN district collectors reply to students’ tweets
Cine lyric
On Friday, a student from Virudhunagar tagged District Collector Meghanath Reddy J on Twitter asking if the TV news announcement about school holiday in the district was indeed true.
His response to the student left Twitterati in splits. “Paale inga therala payasam kekutha ?,” Reddy tweeted, picking up the popular song lyrics of Dhanush’s recent movie Thiruchitrambalam. The lyrics roughly mean ‘there is no milk and you want pudding’. “Rain - No School - Yes. Wrong News. Sleep soon and wake up for school. Good Night,” Reddy added in his tweet thread.
Earlier this week, Tiruvallur Collector Alby John tweeted that holiday was declared for all schools in Avadi, Poonamallee, Ponneri, Tiruvallur taluks. Soon, a student tagged him to ask if it was possible to declare a holiday for colleges in Tiruvallur too. In his inimitable style, the District Collector replied, “Not today. Let’s wait for next time (with a handshake emoji).”
Soon a similar leave request followed from a student in Tiruttanni. “It has not rained much in Tiruttani this time. Next time,” John responded.
Persuading students
But Pudukkottai students took persuasion to a different level. Collector Kavita Ramu took to Facebook to post a bunch of screenshots of leave requests that she received from students.
“Ma’am, please declare leave for Pudukkottai district. Feeling so stressful,” wrote a student.
Another student’s post said, “I will go mad if you don’t declare leave tomorrow,” adding, “If you declare leave, I will build a temple for you in my heart.”
“We are not asking for holidays daily, just announce it for tomorrow. Happiness of many students lies in your decision,”another student wrote.
When finally, holiday was declared for Pudukkottai district, a student wrote, “I can’t forget you ma’am”, calling her an “Angel”.