All Souls’ Day: Scenes from Mumbai and the world

Around the world and in Mumbai, the faithful gathered to mark All Souls’ Day or the Day of the Dead. Observed on November 2, it is an occasion when people pay homage to and pray for the departed 

Updated On: 2021-11-02 12:34 PM IST

Every year, All Souls’ Day is celebrated by Christians across the globe, right after All Saints’ Day.The faithful lit candles at the Sewri cemetery to mark the day. Photo: Pradeep Dhivar/Mid-day

Every year, All Souls’ Day is celebrated by Christians across the globe, right after All Saints’ Day. Observed on November 2, it is an occasion to pay homage and pray for the departed who are thought to be in purgatory. The faithful lit candles at the Sewri cemetery in Mumbai to mark the day. 
Photo: Pradeep Dhivar/Mid-day

Some refer to the day as All the Faithful Departed and the Day of the Dead. According to Roman Catholic beliefs, when the faithful on earth pray, it cleanses the souls of the dead and helps them get to heaven. In Mumbai, people gathered at the Sewri cemetery to observe the occasion. 
Photo: Pradeep Dhivar/Mid-day

It is a tradition on this day to hold requiem masses, and for people to visit and decorate the graves of loved ones. A family lays flowers for a departed loved one at Mumbai's Sewri cemetery. 
Photo: Pradeep Dhivar/Mid-day

With the pandemic continuing globally, the occasion also involved commemorations of victims of Covid-19. In this photo, family members pose next to an altar of Renan Monroy, 40, who died due to the virus, on the Day of the Dead's eve, in Puno, southern Peru on November 01, 2021. Every first day of the month of November the ancestral custom of the so-called "Tombola" is carried out in that city, with offerings to deceased relatives, such as a table of the various dishes which were their favourites in life.
Photo: AFP

In the Philippines, those slain in the government’s war on drugs were remembered. Here, a relative of a victim of an extra-judicial killing is seen attending a memorial mass ahead of All Soul's Day, at the Commission on Human Rights in Manila on October 29, 2021.
Photo: AFP

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