Persistent showers failed to keep shoppers at bay on Sunday, like heat and humidity had failed to over the past couple of weekends.
The showers in the afternoon affected traffic, triggering long snarls near the shopping hubs, despite heavy deployment of traffic personnel.
Most people on the road in Gariahat in south Kolkata, New Market in central and Hatibagan in the north had an umbrella in one hand and shopping bags in another.
The rain was not heavy but came in multiple spells. The sky was overcast for most of the day.
At Gariahat, navigating through pavements was back to being very challenging. The din of honking cars and microphones blaring special Puja offers was drowned out by the shouting contest among hawkers.
Friends Sushama Baidya and Sudeshna Chowdhury had come from VIP Bazar off Picnic Garden. Sushama, a nurse at a private hospital, was holding a couple of shoe bags. They were waiting to cross the road near the Traders Assembly store. “The last two years have been very tough for us. I want to make the most of Puja this time,” she said.
“Barring a couple of hours in the afternoon, when the rain was sharp here, the footfall has been very good. The purchase volume has also been better than last year,” said Parimal Poddar of New Choice, a store selling kurtas and sherwanis at Hindustan Park, opposite Basanti Devi College.
This was a sentiment iterated by traders across the city.
“The year 2020 was pathetic. Last year, people bought very cautiously, may be just for their own family members. A man who bought one pair last year is buying two this time,” said Sk Naushad, who sold denims in the New Market area.
A 4-km ride from Gariahat to South City Mall via the Lake Gardens flyover took close to 50 minutes on Sunday evening. Usually, it takes less than 20. The maximum time was spent on Anwar Shah Road.
Cars barely crawled through both flanks of the road between Lake Gardens and Jadavpur police station, thanks to the volume of vehicles headed for South City Mall.
A “parking full” poster greeted motorists at 2.30pm. Space only became more scarce as the day progressed.
“On Saturdays and Sundays in the run-up to the Puja, there is a lot of pressure on vehicular movement on Anwar Shah Road mainly because of cars headed to South City,” said an officer of the Jadavpur traffic guard.
“Close to 1.2 lakh people visited the mall on Sunday,” said Dip Biswas, deputy general manager of South City Mall.
“There is a growth of 20 per cent in terms of sales volume compared with the corresponding time in 2019 (before Covid). We are expecting the number to jump exponentially in the last two weeks before Durga Puja,” said K. Vijayan, general manager of Acropolis Mall.
Quest Mall and City Centre I and II also witnessed a steady stream of visitors throughout the day.
