Calcutta: The city started its Christmas celebrations early, making the most of a sunny day with a cool breeze blowing at intervals. The usual holiday hotspots - the zoo, Victoria Memorial and Park Street - were teeming with revellers.
Christmas lunch
If it's Christmas, you must be on Park Street. The sidewalks of the city's eat-drink-and-be-merry street were overflowing from early afternoon.
The stretches in front of popular restaurants were clogged. At Peter Cat, the waiting time for a table for four was two hours from 2pm.
Moumita Barua, who was out to dine with her friend Indranil Roy and his family, was relieved when she was told she would get a table in 45 minutes at Mocambo.
"People had to wait for two hours post 7pm yesterday. Today, the rush peaked around 2pm. This is not surprising because Christmas is usually busier than Christmas Eve for us," said Romeo Hansel Bergeon, manager, Peter Cat.
Sam Samax and Olivia Baptist gave restaurants a miss and lunched on sandwiches from a makeshift stall on Park Street instead. "I thought it was a bad idea standing on the road for anything between 30 minutes and two hours when there's so much to do," said Samax.
Zoo
The Alipore zoo was a sea of humanity with the crowd count this Christmas and Christmas Eve clocking 1,89,435 people, compared to 1,26,783 visitors on the same days last year.
One of the busiest enclosures was that of the chimpanzees. Sighs of disappointment could be heard in the crowd every time the trio went into hiding. Loud cheers greeted the chimps every time they made an appearance.
The other crowd favourite was the tiger's enclosure. A group from New Town, with three young boys, were among the lucky ones who spotted the tiger on one of its short stints out in the open.
Three former students of Holy Child School - Disha Biswas, Tanushree Srimani and Ipsita Das Mahapatra - who were meeting for the first time in two years did not seem to mind the crowd. "We would have been able to see more animals had there been fewer people but being in a place with so many people is also something of an experience," said one of them.
wax models of Hollywood characters were a big hit at Mother’s Wax Museum
Eco Park, Mother's Wax Museum
All roads in New Town led to Eco Park on Christmas Day. The major arterial road (MAR) had bumper-to-bumper traffic since afternoon as Calcuttans made a beeline for the 480-acre park, the Mother's Wax Museum and the Seven Wonders Park.
Serpentine queues of cars were seen outside Eco Park all day and all four parking lots were packed to capacity. At least a dozen extra ticket counters had to be opened to tackle the rush of visitors.
On Christmas Eve, Eco Park recorded a footfall of 61,167. The number climbed to 1,07,898 on Christmas Day. The Seven Wonders Park saw 3,214 visitors and Mother's Wax Museum 3,500 on Sunday.
Friends Shreya Dutta, Ankita Dey and Nishantika Dey, all students of Class XI at Christ Girls' School in Nagerbazar, were spotted at the park wearing Santa caps. "We plan to spend the entire evening here. We will first go boating and then grab a bite," Nishantika said.
The top draws at Eco Park were zorbing, kayaking and speedboat rides.
At Mother's Wax Museum, opposite Eco Park, a long queue was seen outside the gate. Inside, visitors clicked selfies with their favourite Hollywood stars.
Victoria Memorial
The all-time footfall record at Victoria Memorial went for a Rohit Sharma six on Monday as a total of 44,015 entry tickets were sold. There were many others who met at the main gate opposite the Maidan but did not enter on seeing the endless queue for tickets.
The previous entry record at the monument was 41,900 on January 1 this year.
Four nurses from Shillong working at Tata Medical Center were among those who didn't enter the grounds but were overwhelmed by the way Calcuttans celebrated the day. "Truly, this is the City of Joy. People of Calcutta have transcended all boundaries in celebrating Christmas and I am not even homesick," said one of them, Wistisha Kharjana.
For many, it was the second straight day of revelry. "We have some plans for every day of the festive season - from hanging out with friends to catching a movie or shopping," said Soma Biswas, a resident of Kankurgachhi, who was in a group of young mothers at Victoria Memorial.
