Agera Harvest Festival 2026 (Bandra)

Agera is the thanksgiving harvest festival of Mumbai's Bombay East Indian Roman Catholic community, falling every year on the first Sunday of October - 4 October in 2026. The word comes from the Marathi "agera," meaning first fruits, and marks the paddy harvest with a procession that pre-dates the community's conversion to Catholicism in the seventeenth century, blending older agrarian ritual with parish devotion. On the day, the parish priest blesses a nearby paddy field and cuts the first stalks, which are then carried to the church by men and women dressed in traditional "surkha" and "lugra" attire, accompanied by an East Indian brass band. Families place the blessed paddy sheaves on their home altars and doorways for prosperity, before a communal thanksgiving meal. Bandra's East Indian gaothans, including the community around St Peter's Church, are among the parishes that keep this tradition alive each year alongside Vasai, Marol and the Manori-Gorai belt. Source: https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/mumbai-mother-mary-draped-in-green-lugra-saree-as-east-indians-celebrate-agera-harvest-festival