A three-day Puja means Calcuttans would have to tick all the boxes with one day less at their disposal.

Hundreds of thousands of people were out on the streets visiting pandals and eateries had a breathless day with an average waiting time of 30 minutes on Park Street after noon on Friday.

From north to south, a sea of people descended on the roads throughout the day and night, organisers said.

The almanac had ordained that Ashtami and Navami were on the same day this year.

So, an early morning prayer gave way to a day and night of Navami revelry.

“There has been a constant crowd flow which could be anything between 30,000 and 40,000 in an hour. It was only between 6am and 8am that the crowd was marginally low in the pandal,” said Soumen Datta, general secretary of Kashi Bose Lane Durga Puja Samiti, one of the crowd-pullers.

A resident of VIP Road who went with his seven-year-old daughter to the pandal on Thursday night decided against entering.

“I had a VIP ticket but I still decided to skip the puja because the queue was so long. I might go back after Ekadashi (Sunday),” he said.

The early morning rituals on Ashtami made some people retire early on Saptami (Thursday night). The Ashtami pushpanjali at many pujas was over by 5.30am. Sandhi Puja was over by 7.15am.

A cop at the Rashbehari crossing said the crowd was slightly less till noon, but as the day progressed people were back on the streets with “renewed vigour”.

“In the evening, crossing the intersection took almost double the time than it took in the afternoon,” said the officer.

Traffic on VIP Road kept swelling by the hour in the evening and the police used loudhailers and whistles near the Sreebhumi bus stop to prod vehicles that had slowed down to keep moving.

Till 5pm on Friday, the crowd count at Sreebhumi Sporting Club stood over 70,000, said Sujit Bose, the chief organiser of the puja.

“There has been a snaking queue from the Lake Town clock tower entry point of the pandal since the afternoon,” he said.

To manage traffic, the airport-bound vehicles were being made to pass through a lane, demarcated with traffic cones and guardrails, on the Ultadanga-bound flank of the thoroughfare.

Some of the fliers who left home early fearing snarls on VIP Road were surprised to find the journey smoother than they had expected. They reached the airport much before time.

Puja pandals in Salt Lake, too, had a surge in footfall in the evening, with neighbourhoods being packed with parked cars and bikes.

The pandals in the AK, FD, BJ and IB Blocks were among the ones that drew a steady stream of people.

Down south, Behala Nutan Dal had a steady stream of about 10,000 people in an hour, said general secretary Sandipan Banerjee.

A Calcutta girl who works in Mumbai could cover only four pandals in about four hours.

“We went to Samaj Sebi Sangha, Ballygunge Cultural Association, Mudiali and Shib Mandir and took almost four hours despite having been allowed VIP entry,” said Ananya Banerjee.

Many restaurants were packed by early afternoon.

“We were packed by 1pm. Diners had to wait for 40 minutes during rush hours to get a table,” said Nitin Kothari, owner, Peter Cat, Mocambo and Peter Hu.

“One less Puja day has not taken away the spirit and we have had the festive crowd right from Wednesday and expect it to spill over to Monday and Tuesday as well,” said Kothari.

Pratap Daryanani, co-owner of Oasis, said Friday had a late start but the restaurant was full in no time.