Shoppers throng malls & markets, make most of extended weekend

Kolkata: The weekend shopping spree spilled over to Monday with shoppers making use of Gandhi Jayanti, a public holiday, to make up for the lost time due to rain. Space was at a premium in the city’s shopping districts as excited shoppers smiled their way through frenzied buying on Gandhi Jayanti holiday, with less than three weeks to go for the Puja. Besides the traditional markets teeming with shoppers, most malls clocked the second-best footfall of the extended weekend on Monday. Be it Hatibagan in the north or Gariahat in the south or the all-time favourite New Market, shopping zones in the city were bustling with buyers of all ages, braving a few spells of light showers.VIP Road resident, Dipshikha Karmakar, was seen slurping an ice cream with her daughter outside New Market, as the duo carried a bunch of shopping bags in their hands and balanced another between their legs on Monday afternoon. “We were at Mani Square and City Centre II on Sunday and came over to New Market on Monday for final shopping. Despite the frenzy, I just loved hopping from one shop to another ,” said Karmakar.Soma Das, a salon owner from Tollygunge—accompanied by her entire family—was spotted jostling for picking up trendy apparels.“It’s hard to miss the festive feel and shopping is part of the revelry,” she said.The scene was similar at the ever vibrant Hatibagan market as TOI caught up with techie Susmita Das from Beleghata who was shopping with her sister. “I follow the Bollywood trend every puja and there is no better place to find the latest fashion than the good old city markets where I am spoilt for choices,” said Das.Excited by the sight of the crowd on a shopping spree, seller Biswajit Basak, however, cursed the weather, which led to a slight dip in the morning footfall even as shops opened earlier than their usual business hours.As it rained in the afternoon, the crowd started building more at the covered malls than the traditional city markets. Manas Mondal a civil engineer from Kasba and Shivam Dutta, a doctor from Park Circus were at Quest Mall with their families as it was pouring outside.Most malls clocked the second-best footfall of the extended weekend on Monday. On Sunday, several of them had clocked record turnouts and sales as people, flush with funds in the beginning of the month, braved the sharp spells of rain around noon and again in the evening to go shopping. The general manager of South City Mall, Deep Biswas, said the footfall at the mall has increased steadily from the start of the weekend till Monday as the count crossed 75,000 by 7pm on Monday. “We had crossed 1 lakh footfall on Sunday,” he said. At the twin City Centres in Salt Lake and New Town, the footfall was a record high on Sunday while Monday saw the highest weekday footfalls other than Friday. “Till the last weekend, the footfall was being driven by movie goers. But this week, it is back to core shopping business,” said Ramesh Pandey, the whole-time director at Ambuja Neotia Group that runs the two City Centre malls.Shop, eat, repeat seemed to be the mantra for a group of friends from Behala who had lunch at a Dhakuria restaurant before heading to a mall for some shopping and ended it with another round of treat at the food court.“I came back home from Bangalore last week and am excited to see that the puja flavour is already here with all the shopping hubs and malls decked up for the festive season. It’s the best time to be in Kolkata,” said Mitrajit Basu, a techie.
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