May 17: "Ladka bahut badmash hai (The boy's very naughty)," complained daddy.

Then came the threat parents often employ on kids who thrive on being naughty. "Police uncle aaye hai. Tumko pakad lega (Police uncle is here. He will catch you)."

The daddy was Shah Rukh Khan and the badmash his little wonder AbRam.

Struggling to keep pace with sprightly father and quicksilver son at the Eden Gardens that evening was traffic police inspector Debashis Das, whose bulky frame was hard to miss through the viewfinders of cameras capturing their every move.

Some of the shutterbugs on the Shah Rukh-AbRam trail cursed Das for almost photo-bombing their perfect frames. Not his fault, though. He was doing his job too: that of tailing SRK.

" Ki korbo bolun toh (Tell me what else I could have done)?" Das recounted to Metro, sitting in his office adjacent to Bhabani Bhavan in Alipore a couple of days after Eden's last match of the IPL season. "I was on duty. It was my job to be with him," he said.

Das, a traffic sergeant for more than two decades, had been assigned to oversee security arrangements around the post-match presentation arena at Eden last Saturday. The Lalbazar bosses had specifically told him that Shah Rukh and Mumbai Indians owner Nita Ambani would be on the ground during the ceremony and it would be his responsibility to ensure they were safe and undisturbed.

Within minutes of the match ending in an easy victory for the Mumbai Indians, Das was busy working out police deployment around the presentation area when one of his bosses called him. Shah Rukh had just started his sprint with AbRam in tow from one side of the Club House pavilion, apparently unnoticed by many in the police contingent.

"Shah Rukh dourochhe (Shah Rukh is running)," an officer said, looking at Das.

He took off immediately, but SRK and AbRam were already around 100 yards ahead by then. This was new to Das. In his career of more than 20 years, he had been on many VIP assignments, including the occasion when former British Prime Minister David Cameron had famously stopped at a Camac Street stall to have vada. But never before had the inspector covered a VIP who sprints.

Clutching a wireless handset with his left hand, Das ran hard, his 6ft and 95kg frame heaving as his leather shoes struggled to grip the grass.

From a distance, the worried cop could see the ball boys and the groundsmen trying to come closer to the superstar. Cue for the few fans who had stayed back to start running down the concrete steps and gather near the fence. "When I finally closed in, Shah Rukh had two bodyguards around him. He looked up and, pointing at his son, said that the kid was very naughty," Das recalled.

The first thing that the cop noticed about AbRam was that he was not the least bit interested in what his father was saying. Das said Shah Rukh lowered his face and asked the three-year-old to look up to see who had come, referring to the cop.

As AbRam looked up at "police uncle", as if to check whether he was in any danger, Das remembers being embarrassed. " Nahin nahin... nahin pakdega (No, no, I won't catch you). You are a good boy," he told Shah Rukh's son.

So, how did the impish AbRam react to this assurance from the big cop? "Don't think AbRam cared," Das said. "And Shah Rukh knew it."

The indulgent father lowered his face again, setting up his son for another sprint down the ground. "Okay, let's run...1, 2, 3!" he announced.

AbRam surged ahead. Shah Rukh followed. Das played catch-up. At a distance, the groundsmen clapped. "Shah Rukh's energy is infectious," Das said. "He would often bend and tell his son to wave at the crowd and the kid would do that."

As father and son completed their lap of the ground, Das was relieved that his assignment was over without any slip-up. As he relived the experience of keeping up with the Khans, the officer-in-charge of Calcutta traffic police's hackney carriage wing had only one regret - of being taunted by some photographers for "coming into the frame". A few of them had even clapped in mock agreement when Das clarified that it was "the duty of a police officer" assigned to protect a celebrity to shadow the person.

The one compliment he received came from son Rohit. "Baba," he said, "You have replicated what I did in November 2014!"

As a third-year BCom student at St. Xavier's College, Rohit had shared the stage with his favourite actor during the promotion of Happy New Year in Calcutta.