When the near-capacity crowd at the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday sensed Lionel Messi could be leaving the ground much earlier than expected, a section of them started booing. Soon after, the emcees quickly announced that Shah Rukh Khan would be arriving “very soon” to join Messi and grace the occasion.
The booing quickly turned to cheers and a roar, but only for a few minutes. In no time the disappointment turned into mob fury as not even a glimpse of Shah Rukh Khan was seen, while Messi too had been escorted out of the ground.
However, it’s not that Shah Rukh, who had reached the city on Friday night and joined Messi for a sponsors’ programme at a city hotel on Saturday morning, hadn’t turned up at the stadium at all. He did, but reached only till near the main entrance leading towards the field of play.
With the situation at the ground far from ideal, the Bollywood superstar left the venue after pausing for a few minutes or so. “Just as Shah Rukh’s car halted near the main entrance, a member of his security team stepped out and saw someone from the crowd tearing apart a GOAT Tour poster at Ramp Q9.
“It took just a few minutes for Shah Rukh and his team then to depart,” said one of the onlookers.
If Messi leaving with a bad impression wasn’t enough, Shah Rukh leaving with a similar kind of experience doesn’t bode well at all for the state, especially as he’s also a former brand ambassador of Bengal. “There was absolutely no coordination between Shah Rukh’s team and that of the organisers. They (organisers) had no idea that Shah Rukh had arrived,” a source privy to the developments stated.
Without doubt, better planning would have had Shah Rukh with a bigger role and a more active participation, including an early arrival, which certainly would have benefited this Messi event. That in turn would also have kept the big turnout intrigued, considering Shah Rukh’s massive fan following as well as his ability as a host.
It wasn’t too long ago when he had anchored the opening ceremony of this year’s IPL and enthralled the spectators at Eden Gardens before the opener featuring his team, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru on a humid March 22 evening.
Above all, not many are capable of entertaining as well as Shah Rukh can, together with his ability to make the audience groove.
The Salt Lake Stadium, host to the 2017 U-17 Fifa World Cup final and several other
unforgettable matches in Indian football, just didn’t deserve to be treated in this fashion. More so because it is the same ground where Messi first made his India appearance 14 years back, on September 2, 2011, in a Fifa International friendly against Venezuela.
“... Would’ve been good had he (Messi) stayed on for a little more time,” former India cricket captain and current Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly, who was there for a brief period, said.
Along with Messi, another Argentine — Ana Belen Colombo Blanco, working at the Embassy of Argentina in New Delhi as second secretary (economic and commercial section) — also left the stadium disappointed.
“Don’t worry, this incident won’t affect the relations between India and our country,” Ana, who had come
to Calcutta only to watch Messi, quipped.
