Rain on Sunday was less intense than the day before and Puja shopping crowds were back.
The usual shopping destinations — Gariahat, New Market and the malls — were crowded again.
Some of the shoppers said that although there were short spells of rain through the day, with less than a month to go for the Puja, they had no choice. Others just shrugged off the fear of rain.
The sea of heads in New Market on Sunday evening resembled people in a queue outside a top-draw Durga Puja pandal. The police were struggling to manage simultaneously the movement of vehicles and the flow of pedestrians along JL Nehru Road.
A crowded New Market on Sunday evening
Earlier in the afternoon, there was a decent turnout of Puja shoppers in Gariahat. The pavements were filled with shoppers sifting through garments in stalls or engaged in a bargain.
Tanaya and Prosenjit Gupta from Dum Dum arrived in Gariahat around noon, despite the rain. They went to Dakshinapan and were back in Gariahat. “We had some work and also did the Puja shopping. There is hardly any time left for Puja and one can hardly stay home because of the rain,” said Prosenjit.
The malls — South City and Acropolis — teemed with people.
South City Mall was bustling with shoppers and its multi-tier parking lot was full in the afternoon.
“We had around 1 lakh people coming to our mall on Sunday. It was at least 30 per cent more than the turnout on Saturday,” said an official of the mall.
Visitors to South City mall on Sunday afternoon
Pallavi Jaiswal from Howrah’s Salkia arrived at South City Mall around 4pm with husband Santosh Kumar and daughter Anvi. The family was among the last few to get a parking place in the mall. “Our multi-tier parking lot is full and we had to keep some cars in front, near the entrance to the mall,” said an official of South City Mall.
Pallavi and her husband shrugged off a suggestion that the rain could be a dampener in the shoppers’ spirits.
The sky was mostly overcast throughout Sunday but there were intermittent sunny phases in the morning. There were spells of rain, but the city did not get the downpour that it did on Saturday, which emboldened many to step out.
From 8.30pm on Friday till 8.30pm on Saturday, the Alipore Met Office recorded 60mm of rain. In the subsequent 24 hours, the Met office recorded 33.3mm of rain.
The Met office recorded 33.3mmn rain between 8.30pm on Saturday and 8.30pm on Sunday.
The overcast conditions will persist in Calcutta, the Met office has said. “The system is over the western districts of Bankura and Purulia, adjoining Jharkhand. It is likely to remain in the same region. As a result, Calcutta and the rest of south Bengal are likely to get more spells of rain,” said a Met official.
The sun will come out in phases. But by and large, the sky is expected to remain cloudy for the next couple of days, he said.
“The well-marked low-pressure... lay centered at 8.30am of October 1 over western parts of Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Jharkhand,” said a Met bulletin on Sunday.
The traders, especially the ones with stalls on roads, said the business did not pick up like it does a fortnight before Mahalaya. This year Mahalaya is on October 14.
Goutam Das, a hawker on the pavement between Gariahat and Golpark, said he had sold garments worth Rs 1,500 till 3pm. “This is better than Saturday. I did not sell goods worth Rs 1,500 in the whole of Saturday. I could have sold more today had there been no rain,” Das said.
A parking attendant in the Gariahat area said he had collected nearly Rs 700 till around 3.30pm, which was more than what he had collected on Saturday.