Mumbai's East Indian community celebrated Agera, its traditional harvest thanksgiving festival, across Gaothans on Sunday. In Marol, hundreds joined a procession carrying harvested paddy to St John the Evangelist Church, followed by a service and cultural events. Resident Godfrey Pimenta said Agera helps younger generations reconnect with the community's agricultural past and preserve its culture.

East Indian Community Celebrates Agera Harvest Festival, Reconnects With Agricultural Roots Across Gaothans |

As Mumbai’s urban landscape continues to expand, the East Indian Roman Catholic community on Sunday turned to its agricultural roots, celebrating Agera, its traditional harvest thanksgiving festival, across the city’s Gaothans.

Thanksgiving For Harvest

Celebrated on the first Sunday of October, Agera is derived from ‘ager’, meaning paddy field, and is a thanksgiving to God for an abundant harvest. In Marol Gaothan in Andheri, hundreds of residents participated in celebrations that brought alive the community’s connection with the village and farming traditions of the past.

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The festivities began with a procession from the Villagers’ Cross, erected in 1948 by the then Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay. Villagers carried sheaves of freshly harvested paddy on a bullock cart, accompanied by a brass band, through the Gaothan to St John the Evangelist Church.

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Service In East Indian Marathi

The procession culminated in a religious service in East Indian Marathi conducted by Fr Peter D’Cunha, parish priest of Amboli Church, followed by cultural programmes showcasing the community’s heritage.

“The Agera celebrations also recall a very different Marol, when the village was surrounded by ancestral agricultural lands and rice cultivation was the principal occupation of its villagers,” said Marol resident Godfrey W Pimenta.

Urbanisation Changed Village

According to community accounts, Portuguese missionaries established a presence in Marol in 1579 and converted local communities to Roman Catholicism. Agriculture remained central to the lives of villagers until the 1970s, when the establishment of the Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) accelerated the urbanisation of the area.

Agera allows the present generation to reconnect with this agricultural past and preserve the culture associated with it, Pimenta said.

Traditional Cuisine Takes Centre Stage

Traditional food formed an important part of the celebrations, with families preparing wedding pickle, pork sorpotel and fugias, a spongy fried bread. Popular East Indian songs, including ‘Paskin’, famously sung by East Indian singer Crompton Tixeira, also featured during the festivities.

An exhibition of old agricultural tools, equipment, household implements and vessels once used in village life offered younger residents a glimpse into a way of life that has largely disappeared from the city.

The Marol celebrations also featured special shirts made in different colours from lugda fabric, traditionally associated with the nine-yard sarees worn by East Indian women. The celebrations were organised under the leadership of Fr Anthony Fernandes, parish priest of St John the Evangelist Church.

In Juhu, the Mobai Gaothan Panchayat (MGP) held its first Agera celebrations at the newly opened East Indian Bhavan at Kaka Joseph Baptista Garden.

MGP’s Alphi D’Souza said the two-day celebrations, which concluded on Sunday, were held at around 100 churches across Mumbai, Thane, Vasai and Raigad, home to an estimated 500,000 members of the East Indian community.

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