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

Calcutta, May 8: 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 today 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 Geetanjali. 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.”