All I set out to do was to tweet on which news channel was showing Hunkaar Rally of Narendra Modi in Patna, and who, instead, saw more TRP in Rahul Gandhi descending on Mangolpuri in New Delhi. (I was also interested to know if Modi will use the “Shahzada” word despite the Congress’s warning, which he did!)

In the runup, most channels were balanced.

The time Modi took to walk down the tarmac and reach the historic Gandhi Maidan was regularly interjected with live feeds from Delhi.

The die was in Patna’s favour when news of bombs exploding started proliferating. Yet, some channels, in my opinion rightly, continued pitching for the political equivalent of “Nadal versus Federer”. A well-regarded young columnist latched on to a silly ANI feed and tweeted: “Tractor tyre bursts in Patna. 10,000 Hindutva tweeters warn of violent anti-Modi sentiment. #facepalm.”

Then both gladiators started.

NDTV, widely perceived to be a Congress braveheart, started showing Modi’s preceding speakers in one-thirds of its screen: the remaining occupied by archived shots of smoke billowing from one section of the Maidan. I may be unfair here, but it seemed the producers were making a last-minute wager that the BJP will wind up and go home.

And then there something happened that we haven’t ever seen in the 20 years of private news television.

Both Rahul and his bete noire started their respective speeches! LIVE! And at the same time, unassisted by aides, and, obviously, unknowing of what the other was up to.

It was India’s tryst with a ‘LIVE’ US-style presidential face-offs.

Channels clearly had to make a choice – television, alas, being a linear medium.

Had I bargained for such an exciting situation!

The verdict was shocking. Not one channel of consequence, be it CNN-IBN, Times Now, Zee News, ABP, or Aaj Tak shed a tear for Mangolpuri.

It was the Hunkaar Rally all they way: in my humble opinion, a suspect decision considering no one would have a differentiator in the rating numbers that’ll follow next week.

But what blew me completely was how NDTV 24x7 took its bets. The channel started showing both, and this must be repeated ‘both’ contestants in parallel screens.

Yes, sirs! BOTH Rahul and Modi were speaking LIVE on the same channel!

This worked, though only for those magical 2-3 minutes. When Modi would pause, Rahul seemed to speak just then. Ditto when Baba was thinking his next line.

But soon even NDTV ran out of luck. Both Rahul and NaMo started speaking exactly at the same time. And the resultant audio overlap made the viewer experience utterly unintelligible.

Then someone senior took pity on the line producers. NaMo’s speech got the thumbs up: Shahzada was bumped off, never to reappear until the last word had been delivered from Gandhi Maidan.

Clearly, someone big in NDTV took a brave Dhoni-like decision. What isn’t clear is how the Congress media managers would take this. And more importantly, if they’ll be able to keep this life-long clobbering away from their young boss.

NB: My favourite part of NaMo’s discourse, beyond the hackneyed historical tour of Patliputra’s greatness, was the dare to Hindus. ‘Would you like a contest with Muslims? Or would you both like a contest with poverty?’

Ditto for Muslims. ‘Would you like a contest with Hindus? Or would you, together, like a contest with poverty?’

If this doesn’t squash the “kutte ka pilla” misquote that Reuters perpetuated in our minds, then you’re a true-blue Rahul supporter.

For the rest of us agnostics, worried about India in Rahul’s untested hands, this made defining viewing. Particularly via NDTV. Did someone hear, ‘et tu’?