Goddess Larai and Milagres Saibinn worshipped together after 13 years

All roads led to North Goa on Monday, when thousands of revelers from across Goa and beyond made a beeline to celebrate the feast of Milagres Saibinn (Our Lady of Miracles) at the St Jerome Church in Mapusa and the Zatrostsav of Devi Lairai, at Shirgao. Incidentally both these feasts were celebrated on the same day after a 13 year gap.
While in Mapusa, devotees line up to bathe the Saibinn with oil, most of them Hindus. “We come here every year and we bathe her in oil, it has been a tradition in our family for a long time,” says Radhika Desai, who travelled from Bicholim. Interestingly, the Our lady of Miracles, in the Hindu Goan tradition, is believed to be the sister of goddess Lairai, and is called Mirabai. “Legend says that they are six sisters and one brother, Khetko, who are worshipped in different parts of the state. There was a fight between Lairai and her brother and she is said to have kicked her brother and eventually, this fight led to a major break-up among the siblings,” says 79-year-old Narayan Gangaram Naik, while waiting at the temple to participate in the dance of the dhonds, where they chant to the beating of the drums.
These dhonds, dressed in white vests and dhotis with their necks covered with garlands of mogras, go into a trance at the beats and they then wave their beth (staffs), made with special intertwined twigs and covered with beautiful threads of myriad colours. The Dhonds then take a dip in the holy ‘Dhondachi tali’, and then after midnight walk on embers of a burning bonfire in a ritual called Agnidivya.
Ganesh Gaonkar, President of Shri Lairai Devi Temple Committee, says that these festivities are an epitome of communal harmony among the locals. “Most of the mogra flowers used in the lairai zatra are grown and sold by Catholics, who sometimes bring the flowers as offerings to Lairai, and the Hindus get oil from the Lairai zatra to pour over the Milagres Sabinn on the feast day. They are sisters and thus for people from both communities, it’s like visiting their aunt.”