My name is multitask Khan

Chat with Wasim Akram and charm the frenzied fans, brainstorm with Sourav Ganguly and banter with the boys, talk money for his team with the Todis and fashion for a cause with Agnimitra — all in an afternoon’s work for Shah Rukh Khan.

“It’s always lovely to be here, feels like home. I know we did not do well last time, but we promise to do better this time,” dimpled SRK before breezing out of a star hotel on Monday evening to catch a flight back home.

This after an hour-long meeting with members of the Kolkata Knight Riders team attending an ongoing camp and the team’s think-tank.

And that after close to three hours spent at the oldest cricket club in the world outside the British Isles.

It was almost business as usual around mid-day on Monday at CC&FC with KKR boys at lunch — the skipper sharing a table with the bowling consultant.

Till the wail of a siren pierced the air and an iridium silver Merc swung in. The players in black and gold sprinted to the ground. Dada sauntered out, bat in hand. The team boss — and more importantly perhaps, superstar Shah Rukh Khan — was here.

But why no (son) Aryan or (daughter) Suhana, as earlier planned? “They couldn’t come. They have school, naa,” he told Metro, slipping off the dark jacket and striding out to the middle in a black T-shirt, jeans and shades.

SRK hugged Akram, greeted Dada, shook hands with the rest of the boys and then left the pitch for a KKR vs KKR match. Curious about the rules of the tie, he was briefed by two of KKR’s key off-field men, Joy Bhattacharya and Jai Mehta. “So out is out?” asked the team owner, as his skipper took guard.

Over black coffee, “sugar separate”, and cigarettes, SRK got down to business. First up, Ashok Todi — still battling the Rizwanur Rahman death case — who hugged him, introduced him to his daughter Priyanka, 25, and got him to pose for a picture.

“We approached Shah Rukh with the proposal of a KKR-Lux Cozi tie-up for merchandise. He was very nice and very courteous. The first round of talks went well,” the Todis later said about their B-to-B chat with the Bolly Badshah.

The clamour from fans at the Ballygunge club to meet their hero was growing by the minute. When permission was granted to five kids to get up close to SRK, the grumbles from some teenagers and some mothers were audible. “What about us? Weren’t we children once?” was one pitch from a not-so-young devotee.

Soon, all schoolchildren at the club came tumbling in. “I told him ‘I love you’. He winked at me,” squealed Zaina Ahmed, a Class X student.

It was photograph-autograph time as SRK played to the galleries with book, bat and handkerchief piling up, waiting for the “hand of god”.

“I love my fans. They have made me what I am. I will always have time for them,” Shah Rukh had told Metro last week in Mumbai. On Monday, he walked the talk by patiently signing autograph after autograph, waving and smiling at his fans.

But there was more work to be done. A table with blind activist Kanchan Gaba and fashion designer Agnimitra Paul awaited him. SRK was to record on camera his best wishes for a fashion show on January 31, under the aegis of the National Association for the Blind (NAB), as he would be away in the US then.

The fashion show is being steered by NAB secretary Gaba and member Agnimitra, with the support of police commissioner (and former NAB president) Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti.

When Shah Rukh’s Merc finally rolled out followed by a BMW with Sourav at the wheel and Akram next to him, Koyel Sengupta, a second-year college student, broke into inconsolable sobs, having missed the chance to meet her hero. She will now have to make do with My Name Is Khan.