The audience cheered aloud as all 17 of Shah Rukh Khan’s “girls” (he referred to them recently as “my girls”) made a grand entry together at the Nokia 14th Annual Star Screen Awards on Thursday evening in Bandra’s glittering MMRDA grounds. In a far cry to their tomboyish hockey jerseys, the boisterous girl gang were at their glamorous best—in flowing gowns, off-shoulder blouses and sari, chic dresses, et al. They made no effort to hide their excitement—many of them were attending a Hindi film awards ceremony for the first time.

Their spirit was infectious. Ignoring my event reporting duties, I too shared their jubilation. “We made it a point to enter the venue together, though we arrived separately. It was quite fun as we kept on calling each other on our way. Those who arrived early waited at traffic signals,” says Shilpa Shukla, who enacted the daring Bindya in the film.

Keeping with the film’s drama, the Chak De actors, who treated us to some of last year’s best cinematic moments, were greeted with hockey sticks as they occupied a specially-allotted table.

At the award show, the girls repeated pretty much what they did in Chak De. As their film bagged one top award after another, the team including Shukla, Vidya Malvade (the reticent skipper), Sagarika Ghatge (talented Preeti Sabarwal) and Tanya Abrol (the aggressive Balbeer Kaur), held up their hockey sticks in a spectacular display of off-screen team spirit. “We would have shouted even harder. But we thought we better show some restraint. After all it’s a formal ceremony,” laughs Shukla.

A relatively quiet Shimit Amin, who sat on the next table with scriptwriter Jaideep Sahni and his rest of the crew, looked on humorously as Chak De’s energetic Hyderabad girl Shubi Mehta whistled non-stop and the rest applauded without any restraint.

However, the winning moment was when the entire Chak De hockey team collected their joint Best Supporting Actors (Female) trophy on the stage, while their onscreen coach Shah Rukh looked on proudly from the front row. “I'm happy that my girls have won an award,” said the star actor later on. The girls made sure to wish their hero luck at the green room before his adrenaline-pumping Dard-e-Disco performance.

“We have been together for the last one and half years. We are more than just friends now. So we were quite happy to win a joint award,” says Malvade.

The evening came to an end, but the party was still not over for Chak De’s girl gang. “Are we going to Zenzi for the party?” I overheard them chatting amongst themselves at the backstage.

They were just in time for the post-event party and the troupe kept on getting bigger as they were joined by Chak De’s assistant directors. “It was a get-together of sorts because we were meeting after a long long time,” says Ghatge.

Compliments poured in from all quarters, and the girls happily obliged shutterbugs for perfect group photographs that would bring back memories of a happy past in the days to come. As the Bandra watering hole shut its doors late in the night, the gang headed to J W Marriott to continue with their celebrations.