Mumbai Parish Celebrates Thanksgiving Harvest Festival with East Indian Traditions

St. Anthony’s Parish in Malwani, a western suburb of Mumbai, celebrated Thanksgiving Sunday on October 4 with Agera, an annual harvest festival that brought together the parish’s diverse Catholic community through prayer, traditional offerings and cultural celebrations.

The celebration began with a procession from Malwani village to the church grounds, accompanied by a traditional East Indian brass band. Parishioners dressed in traditional attire carried newly harvested paddy and other agricultural offerings.

Brother Jubin arrived in a decorated tanga, a traditional horse-drawn carriage, while Fr. Baritan Nigrel arrived from neighboring Kharodi Village in another tanga at the Infant Jesus Chapel.

Before entering the church, newlywed brides welcomed the clergy with a traditional aarti, a ceremonial offering of light.

“Being a new bride, wearing a lugra, a traditional attire, and experiencing the Agera Feast tradition for the first time was such a beautiful feeling,” said Advocate Fiona Gonsalves.

“From welcoming our priest to doing the aarti, every moment felt filled with blessings, joy, and gratitude,” she said.

The Eucharistic celebration brought together Catholics from different cultural communities living in Mumbai, including East Indians, Goans, Mangaloreans, Tamils and Malayalis.

Fr. Cajetan Menezes, parish priest, said the celebration recalled an earlier Mumbai when the city was surrounded by farms and villages.

“This festival takes us back to the Mumbai of old, when Mumbai was surrounded by farms and lived in villages,” he said, noting that little of that landscape remains because of rapid urbanization.

Agera is an ancient harvest tradition of Mumbai’s original East Indian Catholic community. Celebrated in historic Catholic parishes across the region, the festival is observed as an expression of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and the work of human hands.

The tradition reflects the agricultural heritage of the East Indian Catholic community, whose roots in the Mumbai region predate the city’s rapid urban development.

Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra on India’s western coast, has grown into one of Asia’s largest cities. As urbanization transformed former villages and agricultural areas, Agera remained a way for East Indian Catholics to preserve their cultural heritage within their Catholic faith.

At St. Anthony’s Parish, the tradition was also embraced by Catholics from other cultural backgrounds, making the celebration a shared expression of faith and community.

A central part of the Mass was the presentation of lapsi, a sweet dish made from broken wheat and traditionally associated with the first harvest. It was offered at the altar together with vegetables and freshly cut paddy as a sign of thanksgiving for God’s blessings and sustenance.

The blessed lapsi was later distributed to parishioners at each Mass, allowing the wider parish community to share in the harvest thanksgiving.

After the liturgy, parishioners gathered on the church grounds as the brass band resumed playing. People of different ages and cultural backgrounds joined in traditional dances and fellowship.

The celebration showed how Agera continues to preserve the heritage of Mumbai’s East Indian Catholics while bringing together the city’s diverse Catholic communities.

At St. Anthony’s Parish, the offering of paddy, sharing of blessed lapsi and communal celebration connected Catholic worship with an enduring harvest tradition and offered a shared expression of gratitude, cultural heritage and fellowship.