Arihant Karnawat turned 24 on Saturday. His friends would have “killed him” had he taken them out to a place that didn’t serve booze. But b’day also happened to be V-Day and therefore a dry day in the city. With not a drop to drink in Calcutta, the gang of friends decided to party in Salt Lake, which did not go to poll on Saturday.

“We drove all the way from Camac Street to Salt Lake to party,” said Arihant (fourth from left), who along with his seven friends ended up at Bakstage in Sector V. 

Arihant and his friends, all of who voted on Saturday morning, weren’t the only ones Salt Lake-bound. Shivam Gupta of Alipore couldn’t recall the last time he had come to party in Salt Lake. “We usually head to Nocturne on Theatre Road but we had no choice but to come here today,” he said, a few tables away from the Camac Street group.

Ritobroto Mahato drove all the way from his New Alipore home to watch the KKR vs Kings XI Punjab match with his friends, sipping on Jagerbomb. They had to wait for around half an hour before they got a table at Sector V’s Opium. “We received more than 50 calls since morning, enquiring if we would be serving liquor. And since we do not take reservations, queues started from early evening,” said the manager of Opium, Priyadeep Mukherjee.

Orko’ss at City Centre Salt Lake recorded a 10-15 per cent hike in footfall compared to other Saturdays, said assistant manager Avinash Sharma. “I come to Salt Lake Monday to Friday as my office is here but I had no qualms about coming this far on a holiday as long as I got to down some drinks with my friends,” said Arindam Mazumdar of Naktala, spotted at Orko’ss. 

“We had been advertising in advance that we would be open on Friday and Saturday when bars in Calcutta would be shut. And it paid off. On Friday, we even had managers of pubs in Calcutta coming to party with us,” said Sudhir Ahuja, the director of Bakstage.

In the morning, they queued up at the polling booth and in the evening, it was time to flock to the nearest mall. The food court at South City Mall was buzzing with people eager for their dose of weekend fun. 
Srila Bose, 71, decided to catch the evening show of Margarita with a Straw after casting her vote early in the morning. “I enjoyed the empty streets for a change,” smiled the Golf Green resident as she relished an ice cream. Dentist Paromita Guha dropped in with her surgeon husband and daughter for some window-shopping. “My daughter missed out on her art class because of the elections. We had to spend all day at home, so we decided to step out in the evening,” she said. Krishna Gadhia (picture above), a teacher, made most of the family time with her four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.

After the day-long political drama, it was time for some on-stage action at GD Birla Sabhagar with Raell Padamsee’s play Unfaithfully Yours, in association with t2. Mona ‘Jassi’ Singh and Rohit Roy played a couple in love and happily married but not to each other! “I chose to come for this light-hearted and fun play to end my day with a good laugh. The day was very relaxed. I slept till late and then went to vote at Carmel Convent Primary School in Deshapriya Park in the afternoon. It was totally empty. The roads were pretty deserted too. I like the roads this way, so I wouldn’t mind elections every week,” said Arjun Mehta, an entrepreneur.

If a game of gully cricket is the perfect way to spend a holiday, then it’s got to be double the fun with floodlights and the catchy IPL tune to recreate the electric ambience of Eden. DKS Premier Cricket League 2015, in association with t2, got off to a super start on Saturday evening with actor Jisshu Sengupta smashing it open. “I want to go out there and play,” said the actor, who cast his vote at Golf Garden in the morning, agreeing that this is what spells a super Saturday!

For Calcutta’s A-listers, V-Day ended at the Goenka residence in Alipore to celebrate the engagement of Shashwat Goenka, son of Sanjiv Goenka and sector head-retail at RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, with Shivika Jhunjhunwala. 

Text by Brinda Sarkar, Chandreyee Ghose, Nayantara Mazumder, Saionee Chakraborty and Sibendu Das 
Pictures by Rashbehari Das, B. Halder, Sayantan Ghosh. Arnab Mondal and Mayukh Sengupta