US President Barack Obama greets students at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai on Sunday. (AP)

Mumbai, Nov. 7: The entry was perfectly timed. The second Michelle Obama finished her introduction with the words “I present to you my husband, the President of the United States,” Barack Obama walked briskly through a black curtain, across the basketball court and bounded up the two steps to the dais.

The cheers that broke out could well have been for a rock star.

“I wish our politicians would be so easy. There is that thing about him, the feeling that you know, you’re in a concert or something,” Karen Coelho, a third-year math student gushed later.

Inside the college, among the students and the faculty, just being in the presence of such celebrity was an ego-trip. There were 200 students from Xavier’s a 100 more from five other colleges.

That Barack Obama should speak to them, invite questions and answer them, often looking the questioner in the eye, took the breath away for most of the teens and twenty-somethings.

“He’s terrific in these situations,” said Japanese journalist Itaru Oishi of Nikkei Press who has covered more than 20 such “town hall” meetings — like the one in Xavier’s today — by Obama. “Except the one in Shanghai, China, in November last year, these meetings are usually spontaneous”. Itaru is one of the White House pool of journalists accompanying the President.

Obama had discarded the formality of the suit-and-tie to be among the students. His sleeves rolled, he soon left the lectern from where he gave brief opening speech — admitting that it was a tough act to follow Michelle, his wife, whom he described as a brilliant speaker — took a hand-mike and criss-crossed the dais, inviting questions from the students.

Michelle set the tone, really. She recalled her humble background growing up in the south side of Chicago. A Princeton University alumnus, Michelle was a successful lawyer — in the same firm that Barack joined (and where they met) — before giving up her profession to be First Lady.

“Ask him tough questions,” she told the students. When her husband ran up, they embraced and kissed. Just like that. And the boys and the girls cheered.

First up was a tough question. Anam Ansari, third-year physics student from Byculla, asked Obama for his views on jihad, holy war.

“I am Muslim but I did not ask him the question because I am Muslim. I just wanted to know. I was nervous when I asked him the question, and surprised that I should be the first to be called upon to question him,” she said afterwards.

In the sidewings, the American journalists accompanying the President stopped in their tracks — some were typing furiously into laptops, meeting varying deadlines.

Barack Hussein Obama, they call him in Islamic countries in West Asia and the conservatives back home have accused him of being “socialist”, as if that were a bad word.

“There are different interpretations,” Obama said, revealing a familiarity with the polemic about Holy War within Islam. It is the purity of the human spirit and the ability of the good in men to triumph over their evil that is jihad, he is inclined to believe, he says. Unfortunately, extremists have come up with distortions of jihad. He refers to the point again when he takes the question on Pakistan.

Now, he turns back, his left hand casually dug into a trouser pocket. This time he wants a question from a boy in the section of the audience behind him. He picks out one on a blue-striped shirt.

Jehan from HR College asks him about his Gandhi-ism. How does he see values of selflessness and brotherhood overcoming materialistic values?

Obama recalled a Christian father with whom he worked in his days as a community organiser. The priest used to say: “It’s hard to preach on an empty stomach.”

“If people have immediate material needs — shelter, food, clothing — there is an importance to it. I don’t want any young person to do away with a healthy materialism. Having said that, if all you are thinking about is materialistic then I would say you have a poverty of ambition,” the President answered with no aid from teleprompters.

When he speaks there is a hushed silence in the audience. Chandrika Kapagunta, third-year microbiology student, and her friends Shuba Narayanan and Kashmira Prasade, listen intently. At every turn, some 50 hands are raised. Everyone wants to get a question in.

“He spoke to us not as a President but as a friendly professor,” said Kashmira. “Maybe A.P.J. Abdul Kalam does something like that but he’s not so charming,” she says.

The students, like the journalists, were asked to report by nine in the morning. The three-hour wait had left many thirsty. Some did not get an opportunity to ask questions.

Kishu Daswani, law teacher at Xavier’s explained that the students selected for the “town hall” meeting were being rewarded for having done well, either in academics or in extra-curricular activity.

Priyanka Anderson from St Andrews College wanted to ask if Obama had a programme for the youth of India. She did not get her turn but said “this (event) I can never forget”.

Viola D’Mello, of Xavier’s, wondered before the session “we don’t know his mental state right now after the defeat in the (US) mid-term elections”. There was no sign of the nervousness.

“This visit here is not about Barack Obama, its about America,” said Italian journalist Federico Rampini, US bureau chief of Rome’s La Republica newspaper, who was also in the White House pool. “America isn’t the hyper-power it used to be. It is an inter-dependent world and that realisation is dawning.… of course. I can say what I want because I don’t vote in the US.”

Obama himself acknowledged the change in an observation that has never been heard from an American President. In the 1970s, he said, the US was the dominant economic power that could pretty much settle agreements on its terms.

It is still the largest economy but the rise of India — “India has already risen”, he emphasised — Brazil and China means that there is greater competition now.

When Obama took leave, the audience wanted an encore. He had to return mid-way after leaving the dais to shake more hands.