When Shah Rukh Khan was in town this week he was not just dancing to Jhoome jo pathaan or cheering his team to a famous victory at the Eden Gardens.
Far removed from the popular eye, he spent over half an hour with a group of women and a man whose faces have been scarred by acid but not their soaring spirit.
Shah Rukh hugged them, posed for pictures with them and listened to their stories with the kind of patience that, one of them said, made them feel he had nothing more important to do.
For several years now, Shah Rukh Khan has been supporting their corrective surgeries. Some of these smiling brave people required more than 20 of these surgeries.
Shah Rukh’s rendezvous with these women was a private programme but the enthusiasm that the biggest star in this part of the world showed in posing for pictures individually with all of them overwhelmed some of them.
There was Sunita Dutta who spent a sleepless night and took a train fromIchhapore at 8.30am toreach the hotel off EMBypass on Friday.
There was Tanuja Khatun, who travelled from Mograhat in South 24-Parganas to meet “this great man” who has funded her surgeries.
“I thanked him for that. I told him that I needed to do another surgery on my nose. Had it not been for him, I would not have been able to afford these on my own,” said Khatun, 30, who was attacked when she was a schoolgirl.
Khatun has rebuilt her life and does embroidery for a living. She now employs 14 men and women.
The group of 10 included nine women and one man, also a survivor, whonarrated their stories of fightback, courage and conviction, in the face ofostracisation.
“He wanted to know from us if we have been able to stand on our own feet. I told him that my husband and I run a fast food corner,” said Dutta.
The superstar listened to each one of them.
He was in no rush, despite his schedule and had time for everybody, the women said.
“Not just one group photograph, but he posed for all of us. He made sure that none of us missed out. After all, it is Shah Rukh Khan,” said Dutta.
Some of the women said they were nervous while waiting for him to arrive. “He is a man of our dreams,” one of the women said.
“I was nervous and I could not speak. He (Shah Rukh) told me ‘Don’t be nervous. Aap ilaz kijiye, hum hai apke paas (please do your treatment, I am there beside you),” said Suniti Karmakar.
The survivors are all associated with the Bengal chapter of Brave Souls Foundation, which works with acid attack survivors for their education, health, surgeries, litigation and employment.
The foundation was started in Delhi by Shaheen Malik, an acid-attack survivor.
“Meer Foundation (‘of Shah Rukh Sir’) is doing so much for my warriors. I wanted him to meet them and hear from them as to how his help has made a difference in their lives,” said Aparajita Bose, the coordinator of the Bengal chapter of Brave Souls Foundation.
Bose said that she keeps bothering the people at Meer Foundation, with messages and requests for support. “He told me ‘aur tang karna, Ma’am (bother us more, Ma’am),” said Bose.
The love, time and attention from one of the world’s biggest stars overwhelmed the group of 10.
“We have faced isolation and ostracisation. There have been people who have turned their faces away from us. But then there was Shah Rukh Khan, who showed us how much he cared,” said Dutta.