Shah Rukh Khan waves to fans as actress Indrani Haldar puts a garland around Rabindranath Tagore’s portrait at Eden Gardens on Thursday. Picture by Pabitra Das

Two short of the 150th anniversary of his birth, Rabindranath Tagore got a new name — Tagore Sahaab.

“It’s a big day and we have to give shraddhanjali to Tagore Sahaab... (who is important) not only for Calcutta but for the whole of this country and the world,” Shah Rukh Khan said on Thursday after landing in town.

On a day a T20 match at the Eden and Panchishe Baisakh coincided, Shah Rukh created history twice over. Never before had Rabindrasangeet been sung live before the start of a cricket game and never before had the poet been called Tagore Sahaab.

SRK obviously liked the epithet since he carried it over from the brief interaction with the media at the airport where he said it twice to the ground.

“It’s a great, great honour to pay our respects to Tagore Sahaab,” he announced at the Eden where he had organised a short tribute. And, contrary to earlier signals, he did perform.

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth.”

Bollywood’s superstar read in a quiet voice Tagore’s lines from Gitanjali. Every time he mentioned the name, he said Tagore Sahaab. The big electronic scoreboard at the Eden stuck to the conventional “Kabiguru”.

SRK garlanded a portrait of the poet placed on a makeshift stage put up inside the fence in front of Block J. “I understand the kind of rationalism plus scientific and emotional approach in his writing...,” he added during the short celebration of Tagore’s 148th birth anniversary.

Shah Rukh took the stage with the Tollywood brigade of Jisshu Sengupta, Jeet, Indrani Halder and Koel Mullik. Moments earlier Indrani Sen had sung a bilingual (Bengali and Hindi) version of Boro asha kore eshechhi go and Mamata Shankar and her troupe staged two dances set to a medley of Tagore songs, including Poush toder daak diyechhe.

It wasn’t exactly the winter weather of “Poush” on offer, though, as a Kalbaishakhi, or Nor’wester, raged, throwing T20’s Tagore tribute into turmoil.

The storm and the fact that the show was planned over one hour before the scheduled start of the match meant that there weren’t many around to watch it.

Shah Rukh, however, was all grace as he praised Calcuttans for filling up the Eden for the third match in a row.

“I am thankful to the people for their love. I want to thank them because the stadium is still full,” said King Khan.

He said that despite being the boss of the Calcutta team for some time now, the only Bengali words he has been able to master are Korbo lorbo jeetbo. That’s why he selected the English lines from Gitanjali which best described the spirit of his team: Where the mind is without fear…

It wasn’t long after the Rabindra Jayanti that the speakers across the Eden started thumping again with the beats of Deewangi deewangi and Beedi jalai le but by then Shah Rukh had strengthened his Bengal connection.

At the airport, it was pointed out: Devdas, the Knight Riders, Tagore — you are getting more and more close to Bengal.

The epitome of social correctness, Shah Rukh replied: “We are all Indians... I am from Delhi, work in Mumbai, spent childhood in Bangalore and I work now in Kolkata... with a lot of literary and cultural parts to it. The passion is very important.”

For those waiting with anxious expectation of an SRK performance of a nature different from reading from Gitanjali, he held out hope.

“I don’t think there’s any place for performance at a cricket match...not in the 10-minute break...but we will get some other people to perform if they wish to on days when we can have that.

“I have spoken to Rani and Kareena and all.… If they wish to, we will make something special.”