This streetside market in Bowbazar was an aberration on Tuesday — it stayed open till noon. “A holiday, forced or otherwise, means a lavish lunch. And that is good for us,” smiled fishmonger Montu Das, unperturbed about flouting bandh timings. (Amit Datta)

Work may not be worship in strike-smitten Calcutta but for the few bandh-weary bravehearts who thought it was their “duty” to defy the Left Front’s stay-at-home diktat on Tuesday, adventure was the name of the game.

Garments manufacturer Amit Makharia spent three-and-a-half hours on the road, paid Rs 200 for a rickshaw ride and walked more than 5km to reach his Howrah factory from Ballygunge to show solidarity with his employees who had turned up for work, only to be accosted by a Citu brigade at the gate.

A senior south Calcutta-based executive used to being driven to office rode a bicycle to work for the first time in his career and “enjoyed it as much for the joy of cycling through empty, pollution-free streets as for the satisfaction of defeating a regressive bandh culture”.

Then there was Salt Lake resident A. Roy, who was so determined to attend office on Tuesday that he spent Monday night in a relative’s house in Golpark to minimise travel time to his Rabindra Sadan workplace.

For Raju Das of Raju Sweets at Kaikhali, on VIP Road, doing “good business” on a bandh day was the sweetest part of his defiance. “I opened my shop at 9am and earned more than Rs 300 by noon,” he smiled.

Didn’t he fear reprisal? “Why should I fear doing business in my shop?” he shot back.

Roy, an executive with an infrastructure company, was spurred by similar thoughts. “The week has just begun and you can’t sit twiddling your thumbs at home just because someone wants a bandh. May 1 (Saturday) is a holiday, which means another day lost. If an office remains closed for two days a week, how can anyone finish assignments?” he railed.

Did his boss insist that he must attend office? “There was no pressure. It was my personal decision to go to work, bandh or no bandh. I don’t think strikes can prevent price rise; I am sure there are better ways of combating it,” he added.

For Makharia, in his late 30s, a call from one of his workers saying that Citu supporters were preventing them from entering the garments unit on Foreshore Road, in Howrah, was enough to strengthen his resolve to step out.

“I looked at my watch, it was already noon. I decided to leave immediately against the advice of my family,” he told Metro.

Makharia left his Ballygunge home around 12.30pm hoping to find something on wheels, which turned out to be a rickshaw whose owner wouldn’t budge for anything less than Rs 200 to take him till Babughat.

The garments manufacturer left the rickshaw at the Park Street crossing after meeting an acquaintance who agreed to give him a lift till Babughat. “But there was not a single ferry operating from Babughat on Tuesday. So I walked down Strand Road in the heat and reached Howrah Maidan, where I finally found a taxi driver who agreed to take me to Foreshore Road for double the normal fare,” he recalled.

By the time Makharia reached his office, it was almost 4pm, three-and-a-half hours after he had set out of home. “The Citu boys were still there and they wouldn’t let me enter. But I was happy to at least stand by my employees,” he said.

Makharia and his team of workers finally entered the garments factory after the bandh army left around 4.30pm.

As and when the next strike is declared, Makharia intends starting early so that he reaches office before the bandh brigade does.