Happy Agera 🌾
Agera is one of the important traditional festivals of the East Indian Catholic community of Mumbai, Thane, Vasai and surrounding parts of the Konkan region. It is basically a harvest and thanksgiving festival. The festival has a special connection with the agricultural history of the East Indian Catholic community, whose ancestors lived in the villages and cultivated the land long before much of the region became heavily urbanised.
Agera festival generally celebrated on the first Sunday of October, when the monsoon is coming to an end and the new crop, particularly paddy, is ready for harvesting. The festival is not simply about eating and celebrating after the harvest. At its heart, it is about being thankful to God for the land, the crops, the rain and the work of the farmers. The word Agera is associated with the word ager, meaning a field or cultivated land.
Traditionally, the celebrations began in the fields themselves. The priest, accompanied by farmers and members of the village, would go to the paddy fields. The first stalks of the crop would be cut and blessed. The newly harvested paddy would then be taken to the church, where a thanksgiving Mass would be celebrated.
In some places, the crop was carried in a procession, sometimes using bullock carts, accompanied by traditional music and members of the community.
One of the most meaningful parts of Agera is the blessing and distribution of the new grain. After the church service, blessed stalks or grains are distributed among the people. Traditionally, families would take the blessed rice home and keep it as a symbol of God's blessing, prosperity and hope for the coming year.
In this way, something as ordinary as a stalk of rice becomes a reminder of the relationship between the people and land.