Kolkata: Students, senior citizens make most of their Sunday with joyrides on new Metro

KOLKATA: Ishan Ghosh Dastidar, a Class-VI student, keeps awake every night to hear his father — an East-West Metro employee — say how they were tunnelling below the Ganges. On Sunday, an insistent Ishan forced his mother Panchali to take him for a ride on the East-West Metro train in Salt Lake.
“I am glad that we came all the way from Howrah Shibpur to Salt Lake.It is amazing. Feels like we are in a different country,” Panchali says. A visibly happy Ishan says, “Having heard from my father, I had formed an image of the new Metro in my mind. But this is beyond it.” Like Panchali and Ishan, several hundreds came to take a Metro ride on Sunday to see for themselves Kolkata’s newest attraction.
According to sources, Aryan Mitra — a Class-V student of a south Kolkata school — was the first passenger on Sunday. The services started at 12 noon unlike the weekdays.
Sagnik Chakraborty, a postal department employee, brought his father Dilip, a retired government employee, and mother Snigdha, a homoeopathy practitioner, for a ride on the new Metro. “It is not possible to do it on weekdays,” said Sagnik, who had come from Bagmari, “So, I thought it would be nice to surprise them with the Metro ride today.”
Twins Rajanyo and Soujanyo — both Class-VI students — were elated too. “Mashi and Mesho had promised us a surprise. We never knew they will bring us for the Metro ride. It is so beautiful,” Rajanyo said.
Sanghamitra Ray, an LIC employee, had come to meet her friends at City Centre I from airport Gate One. She chose to take the Metro with them before getting down at City Centre stop. “It has an airport feel. I hope people take responsibility in maintaining this,” she said. Salt Lake DL Block residents Sucheta and Shantiranjan Dey, both in their 70s, chose Sunday to take their first Metro ride in Salt Lake. Shantiranjan said, “Everyone has worked hard to put in place such a system in Kolkata. It is now our responsibility to ensure that it remains this way.”