Pathare Prabhus, one of the oldest communities of Mumbai, concluded a four-day festival celebrating their culture and history on Sunday in Lonavala.

The Pathare Prabhus have a history in Mumbai tracing back to 1296 CE when they are believed to have settled down in a place called Mahikavati, which according to historians is present-day Mahim. Mahikavati was the capital of the Yadava king Bimbdev. During their eight centuries of presence on the islands that later became Mumbai, the small community played an influential role in the area’s culture, politics, architecture, art, and religion.

The festival at Serenity Resort started on the evening of November 14 with Indrayani puja and Abhang Wari. The other days of the festival had cultural skits, an award ceremony to honour prominent Pathare Prabhus, a pictorial exhibition on the community’s history, and events to highlight their distinct cuisine which is centered on fish and other ingredients from the sea coast which has been the community’s home for centuries.  An exhibition on the traditional kitchenware, sourced from the collection of advocate Rajan Jayakar, was another highlight. The festival ended with a shobha yatra where Pathare Prabhus displayed their traditional costumes.

Jayakar said that the reason why the festival was held in Lonavala was because there were no sponsors and the Pathare Prabhu owner of the resort hosted it. “The last such festival was held in 1938. So it is after more than 80 years that we are having a celebration of this kind,” said Jayakar.

Among the distinguished Pathare Prabhus who have left their mark in Mumbai’s history are painter M V Dhurandhar (1867-1944), vice-principal of the J J School of Art, Kamala Vijaykar, the first Hindu female student at St Xavier’s College who went on to become a magistrate, Barrister Ramrao Jayakar, first vice-chancellor of the University of Poona (Now Savitribai Phule Pune University), Rao Bahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, who became the first Indian Municipal Commissioner of the city in 1940, and ‘Bhau’ Lakshman Hari Chandarjee Ajinkya who built Bhau cha dhakka, the ferry wharf in 1841 CE. In 1895, a Pathare Prabhu named Shivkar Bapuji Talpade is reported to have flown an unmanned aircraft over Girgaon Chowpatty, eight years before the Wright brothers did so in America.