It took several e-mails, but the students of Ved Vyasa School finally got their man, in this case President A P J Abdul Kalam.

"It is really a dream come true for the handful of students of our school who communicated with the President through e-mails once they came to know about his proposed September 25 visit to Kozhikode (Calicut)," Ved Vyasa School principal A Chenthamarakshan told PTI.

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The students felt 'jealous' on watching TV and media reports of other school children tying rakhi and interacting with the President wherever he went.

"First when they asked me to arrange an appointment with the President, I told them it is an uphill task, for security reasons. However, the ambitious students decided to send him an e-mail and it clicked," Chenthamarakshan said.

The students were inspired by Kalam's eagerness to interact with school children across the country ever since he became the President, Chenthamarakshan said.

"Initially, they prepared a letter to the President. Then XI standard student U G Ghosh came up with the idea of sending an e-mail. When no reply was received to the first one, they sent as many as 20 e-mails expressing their desire to meet him.

"When the President's consent was communicated to the district collector, the students were quite overwhelmed. Now they are busy preparing themselves for the proposed meeting," he said.

There are 1,100 students in the 13-year-old school and the district administration has decided to use this opportunity to invite other children from nearby schools too to meet Kalam.

Vidya Niketan, the Kerala Chapter of all-India Vidya Bharati, runs Ved Vyasa School.

The President is visiting neighbouring Malappuram district and Kozhikode on September 25 for a series of programmes that include conferring the Calicut University's honorary doctorate on jurist V R Krishna Iyer, artist M F Hussain and UGC chairman Arun Nigavekar.

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