Around 12.30pm, the gates of the Alipore zoo looked like a sea of heads from the skywalk above.
An hour later, the queue to enter the Victoria Memorial stretched around 500 metres, like it happens outside the Suruchi Sangha pandal on Saptami night.
At 8pm, almost every Park Street eatery was packed. The waiting time outside some of them was close to an hour even for a small group of four.
The last day of the year was a Sunday and people — from Kolkata as well as districts — made the most of it.
The result: parks, museums, malls and restaurants teemed with people throughout Sunday.
The ticket counters and the gates of the Alipore zoo were opened 30 minutes before schedule to ease the rush.
All 30 ticket counters at all four gates were operational for Sunday. Many people had booked online tickets but the counters still had long queues.
Babies were often spotted on the shoulders of elders. “Haath chharbi na khobordar (Don’t dare let go of my hand),” was the diktat for the slightly more grown-ups.
The aroma of food filled the afternoon air as many families sat down in the gardens for lunch.
Avisake Kolay, wife Priyanka, and daughters Anuska, 16, and Avipsha, six, were resting outside the zebra enclosure. The little one was in the zoo for the first time.
The Kolays live in Chandrakona in West Midnapore. “The zoo trip was for my younger daughter. From here, we plan to visit Science City. That is for my elder daughter,” said Avisake.
“The footfall on Sunday was 70,014, the highest this year. On Christmas, we had 63,820 visitors,” said Subhankar Sengupta, the director of the zoo.
At the Victoria Memorial, the queue at the north gate on Hospital Road stretched for more than 500m along Queensway.
Hawkers selling candy floss and selfie sticks were moving up and down the queue, flaunting their wares to the visitors waiting to get in.
A German couple stood at a distance and watched the proceedings.
Benedikt and Anna Gocke, from Bochum in western Germany, were in India for the first time. They came to Kolkata via Delhi, where they landed a couple of days ago.
“Kolkata is very lively. Every place here seems to be crowded. But Kolkata is friendlier than crowded European cities,” said Benedikt, who teaches philosophy at a college in Bochum.
“The footfall on Sunday was over 40,000. Usually, there are six ticket counters at Victoria — three each at the north and south gates. On Sunday, five additional counters were opened to ease the rush of visitors," said Samarendra Kumar, secretary and curator of the Victoria Memorial.
Across the road, the Maidan, too, was bustling with revellers. Families sat on mattresses, played badminton or rode ponies and horse-drawn carriages.
Vineet Shaw, who owns a shop in New Market, had come with wife Priyanshu and their two-year-old daughter Aadya. The baby was busy gorging on an ice-cream.
“We were planning to go to the Victoria Memorial. But the queue was so long that we did not want to go in. We will spend some time here in the open and then visit Science City,” said Priyanshu, a homemaker.
Eco Park was the destination for many. Traffic moved slowly on the Major Arterial Road (MAR), which leads to the park and connects it to the city.
The cops had a trying time to keep vehicles moving on both flanks — one for vehicles bound for the airport and the other for vehicles headed for Salt Lake — of the MAR.
By 3pm on Sunday, not a single parking slot was empty at the 480-acre park, which has a 110-acre water body in the middle.
Many had to wait for more than an hour to reach the ticket counters but the mood was festive and nobody seemed to mind.
Inside, there was a sea of heads. Water rides such as zorbing, kayaking and speed-boat rides were crowd favourites. Food stalls, too, did brisk business.
Samapti Chakraborty, a resident of Lake Gardens, was at the park with more than a dozen friends.
“We had planned to visit it on Christmas but that did not work out. So we came today. We will have dinner at a restaurant nearby before heading back home," Chakraborty said.
Old favourite Nicco Park had more than 5,000 visitors on Sunday.
Rides such as Striking Cars, Sky Launcher and the roller-coaster were much in demand. The food court was as crowded.
“We have had an encouraging response this year and our mascots were the crowd favourites,” said a park official.
Park Street was the destination for a large number of revellers on the last day of the year. The crowd swelled as the evening progressed.
Besides the pavements, the additional walkways created by the cops by cordoning off a slice of the carriageway saw steady streams of people move up and down.
Many gathered on Park Street, which had a bright canopy of lights, to soak in the festive ambience.
Many chose to bid adieu to 2023 with a hearty meal. Most eateries — on Park Street and elsewhere — remained open well past midnight.
Around 8.30pm, scores of people waited outside Bar-B-Q. The waiting time was 40 minutes for a group of four. Similar scenes played out outside old favourites such as Mocambo, Peter Cat and Trincas.
“Lunch was extremely busy. The dinner crowd is also picking up. We are open till 1am, instead of the usual midnight closing time,” Rajiv Kothari, owner of Bar-B-Q, said around 7.30pm.
Ditto at malls. South City Mall had more than 50,000 visitors till 6pm, said an official of the mall.
The restaurants inside the mall were also packed throughout the day.
“We will serve guests till 2am. Usually, we close at midnight,” said Amit Bajoria, owner of the franchisees of Lord of the Drinks and Warehouse Cafe.
Acropolis Mall was also crowded throughout the day.
