Calcutta calling: bollywood and cricket heroes

Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Mumbai for the night. He is set to be back on Tuesday evening for the KKR match

Wife Gauri and daughter Suhana depart for a holiday in Dubai on Monday evening

SRK Tweets

• Now better go and have lunch...wife will get angry otherwise. they all leaving for a holiday...will miss them too much. • In kolkata going for lunch with family. the work out...then meeting & then flying to mumbai for 8 hrs. • @kkriders our bowling rocks...its quite a thinking attack.. • @priyankachopra for lighting up the evening with ur presence. felt nice to have u with us at the kkr home. • Will do the celebrations at a later stage. right now all our concerted enrgy is to keep up the tempo. was really happy to be at eden

Priyanka Gupta has no time for family or friends these days. The 19-year-old is spending most of her waking hours in the star hotel playing host to the stars.

No, she doesn’t work for the IPL, the KKR or ITC The Sonar Calcutta. She is just a stargazer making most of the celebrity shower in a parched city.

“I got the autographs of Shah Rukh and Katrina on Sunday, Sourav and Dhoni on Monday. I also clicked them all on my mobile,” gushed the college girl, justifying the long hours she has been spending in the hotel lobby.

Priyanka is one of the many players in the waiting game that is on at the team hotel for the IPL. They wait and they watch. They click and they catch.

“The two biggest draws here are Bollywood and cricket. And IPL is a marriage of both. The offspring naturally is the fan frenzy,” shrugged a hotel employee, going “a little crazy” but also “enjoying every minute of the IPL fever”.

For 27-year-old Mukul Mall, the affliction is milder than Priyanka’s, but that did not stop him from deliberately picking the star hotel for dinner on Sunday. “When I learnt that all the celebrities and cricketers were staying there, I booked a table at Peshawri — for a good meal and to catch a glimpse of Katrina!”

An hour after KKR’s win at Eden, the lobby at the entrance of the team hotel resembled a crowded airport lounge — only far better-dressed and looking far more excited. There were five-year-olds clutching on to their equally excited parents, teenagers toting mobiles and even grandmoms and granddads craning their necks to catch the stars.

“Please take a picture of mine with him naa and put it up on Facebook,” a young girl urged a friend.

The “him” in question, was, of course, Shah Rukh Khan.

Who will have the last laugh at eden?

Chennai Super Kings captain M.S. Dhoni was happy to be in Calcutta for a charity dinner with his team the night before taking on the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden. Dhoni’s bat from his first Test 100 went for Rs 3,10,000. No wonder he was all smiles.

KKR skipper Sourav Ganguly was spotted at Subrata “Sahara” Roy’s high-profile bash at another star hotel in town. “It’s too early to say that the colour [purple] is lucky, we have just won two matches,” he smiled before heading for the biryani counter.

A flurry of activity at the tall glass lobby doors around 8.50pm meant that the mobile phones at the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass address were whipped out like guns in the wild West.

In sauntered Katrina Kaif with Vijay Mallya’s son Siddharth by her side. “She’s so pretty, yaar,” was the hushed whisper amidst clicks of camera phones. “But who is the guy?” asked a voice in the crowd. “Vijay Mallya’s son,” replied another. “Does Salman know?” wondered a concerned Calcuttan.

Many did not even make the effort to move to a restaurant; the leather seater near the lobby gate was the parking lot for the stargazers.

Between 9.50pm and 11.30pm, the fan brigade caught a glimpse of Sourav Ganguly (greeted with cries of “Dada, Dada, please one picture”), Brian Lara (“he’s so smart”), Murali Kartik (no comments) and Rohan Gavaskar (“Sunny Gavaskar’s son”).

“That’s Gauri,” a young woman clutched her companion’s arm. What she meant was Shah Rukh must be close.

Finally, at 11.40pm, SRK stepped out to see Priyanka Chopra to her car. “Oh my gawd,” shrieked a young lady. “He spoke to me,” shouted another. “Did he shake hands with you,” an anxious mother asked her daughter, a hint of envy in her tone. “Shah Rukh hai, jaiye ji,” urged a woman to her reticent husband.

Reticence was in short supply on Monday as cricket and Bollywood fans camped at the hotel waiting for that magic moment.

Fans throng the IPL team hotel, waiting for a glimpse of the stars Pictures by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya, Bishwarup Dutta and Rashbehari Das

“This fan frenzy is nothing new. We have always been a starstruck city. Earlier, we would wait for hours on Chowringhee outside Grand Hotel for a glimpse of Viv Richards or Amitabh Bachchan. Now, they wait for hours in the comfort of air-conditioned hotel lobbies with grand bathrooms round the corner for the Shane Warnes and Shah Rukh Khans,” smiled Pradip Gupta, a wait-and-watch veteran, who also happens to be Priyanka’s father.

Clearly, when it comes to cricket and Bollywood, generation gap means nothing.