Last year on their anniversary, the Duttas had driven down from Bally to celebrate at Eco Park. This year they were back in New Town, to celebrate atop the all-new Biswa Bangla Gate.

“I’m the first one in my class to have visited the gate,” beamed their eight-year-old son Sagnik Dutta. “It was beautiful and I’m going to tell everyone in school tomorrow.”

Vaibhav Sanwaria had driven down from Alipore, picked up his fiance Neha Bagla from CD Block in Salt Lake and come to spend an hour atop the gate too. “I was browsing bookmyshow.com when the app asked if I wanted to buy tickets to the gate,” said Vaibhav. “We had been waiting months for this to open and came by as soon as we could.”

Biswa Bangla Gate has been open to the public since Saturday and visitors have been pouring in. “I was at the book fair last Thursday and watched the chief minister declare the gate open. We were very excited and came within a week,” said Ruma De Baidya of Sonarpur.

A maximum of 45 visitors are being allowed up in batches for a duration of 45 minutes and the gate’s staff said they have seen several houseful periods already. “A few visitors are unaware that the tickets are only being sold online. This is to avoid congestion at a busy road junction. Upon being informed, these people are booking tickets online right here and going up the gate.”

Mayank Kishan Puria was one such. His family of 10 had come to the ticket counter soon after the gate opened but realised there were no offline tickets to be bought. “We had to return home that day as the last show of the day was over,” he said. They were back on Wednesday. Show timings are at every hour from noon to 5pm. Mondays are shut.

A service road next to the gate has been cordoned off for free car parking and a waiting room and toilet complex have been built as there are no toilets upstairs.

“Some people are complaining about the Rs 100 ticket price but we think it’s a good way to control the crowd. The duration is short and sweet too,” said Mrittick Choudhury and Alekhya Das, who had come after attending classes at Amity University, to shoot footage for some videos.

Priyanka Bajaj was visiting the city from Mumbai and was proud to be atop such an imposing structure. Subhas Dutta said the view of the New Town skyline was well worth the Rs 100 charged. “We also had some snacks upstairs,” he said.