Celebrations of Argentina’s triumph spilled over to Monday. Some Kolkatans skipped work, many left home in blue and white shirts and many more had a feast.
Across neighbourhoods, there were impromptu community lunches followed by long adda sessions. Everywhere, it was accompanied by a minute post-mortem of the greatest World Cup final ever and, not to mention, what Mbappe could have done differently.
In Salt Lake’s EE Block, fans had mangsho-bhaat (mutton and rice), followed by rosogolla, for lunch.
Partho Chakraborty was heard telling friend Avijit Bose, a staunch Brazil supporter, to have a few more pieces of mutton to make the meal memorable.
“I will have five extra pieces of mutton and rosogolla as Brazil has won the Cup that many times,” came the riposte from Bose.
The Brazil fan added: “However, I am elated that Lionel Messi won the World Cup. He definitely deserved it.”
There were five rosogollas on his plate by the time he finished devouring mutton.
Park Street, dazzling under a canopy of Christmas lights, had small huddles of young men and women, many of them clad in blue and white, discussing which pub to hit.
Sourjya Majumder, 36, in a powder blue shirt with white stripes, said all of them had watched the match together in his New Alipore house and decided to skip work on Monday.
“We have been fans of Argentina since college and last night’s feeling is yet to sink in. Although we screamed our lungs out after Messi lifted the Cup, we wanted to celebrate today as well. I think we will be in a state of elation for the next few weeks,” said Majumder.
The winter festival season has kicked in and many Kolkatans look forward to a few weeks of elation around this time of the year.
In Salt Lake, Sukanya Chaudhary and her friend Jangsen Aier were waiting for other friends on Monday afternoon. They were clicking photographs in front of a wall adorned with hand-painted pictures of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona.
Sukanya Chaudhary and Jangsen Aier celebrate in front of a mural of Lionel Messi in Karunamoyee, Salt Lake
Chaudhary had donned an Argentine jersey, while Aier, who is from Nagaland, had his nails painted in blue and white.
“We had a late lunch here and will head out somewhere else, where every detail of the match will be dissected and re-dissected. We were awake till 5am and there was no way we could head out for our classes, so all of us decided to get out and celebrate,” said Chaudhary, who has just finished her graduation.
In Jadavpur’s Ganguly Bagan, a locality that has been decked out with giant cutouts of players and flags, a group of friends landed up to take photographs and groupfies.
Kisha Pal, who had landed up wearing a blue T-shirt, said their group of eight friends wanted to take photographs against the backdrop of a giant Messi cut-out before heading for a celebratory dinner.
“I don’t follow football closely, but I am fond of Messi. We all are friends from school and will head out for dinner,” Pal said.
Fight after Cup
A group of Argentina and Brazil supporters started fighting late on Sunday, after the World Cup final got over and Argentina won the Cup. Supporters of both sides were injured in Dakshindari, on the fringes of Lake Townin northeast Kolkata.
Lake Town police station has posted cops in Dakshindari to prevent a rerun.
