Harvest is in the air and it is time to celebrate and make merry. The
first village to celebrate this occasion is Raia, where the Feast of Our Lady
of Snows, which is synonymous with Konsachem Fest, is celebrated with much
reverence and glory on August 5 at the Our Lady of Snows Church.
The first cut to the lusciously ripe paddy is ceremoniously done by the
parish priest using a special sickle with a golden handle (which is said to
have been sent by the Pope when the Portuguese were in Goa), after having said
the prayers and blessed the field, with the villagers gathered around. This is
followed by the High Mass in the church.
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Lore has it that the statue of Our Lady of Snows was a former goddess
in the Kamakshi Devi Temple in Shiroda. “It is purported that the Portuguese
forcefully brought the statue from the temple and installed it in the then
newly-built church and called it Our Lady of Snows. For this reason, even
today, a sheaf of the newly cut paddy is sent from the church to the temple as
an act of obeisance,” says 85-year-old Marequinha Crasto from Raicho Ambo, who
has memories of the feast as far as she can remember. She says that in the days
of her youth, a drum-like dol-kash was beaten in the evenings of the novenas,
and the villagers believed that it was the vibrations of this loud sound that
coaxed the ears of paddy to open in time for the feast day. The newly harvested
rice is used to make a dessert called godshem – a dish with rice and jaggery.
In the evening, people make their way to the small little fair where potters
sell their earthen ware.
