Uncomfortable with Hindi, PM reads address in Gurmukhi

A brief session with a teleprompter on Tuesday was all that was needed to get the ‘‘affable and shy’’ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to break his silence before the cameras on Thursday night and address the nation.

Officials, who had spent the last two days preparing Singh for his first address to the nation, found him a pro. Singh as former finance minister and now as the Prime Minister was no different when it came to facing the cameras, as he breezed through his carefully-crafted speech in English lasting nearly 25 minutes just as he sat through the mandatory ritual of getting his

‘‘face done’’ for the cameras.

But Hindi was a different matter. According to sources, Singh was ‘‘visibly uncomfortable’’, and took a longer time to deliver his address in Hindi. In fact, the Prime Minister, it is learnt, opted to read Hindi in the Gurmukhi script — requiring a last-minute technical change in the teleprompter.

Now that Singh has broken his silence, it is learnt, Ravindar Singh, an officer from the Indian Information Service, will be assisting media advisor Sanjaya Baru in preparing the Prime Minister’s future speeches in Hindi.