When the drums start, and a singer's voice cuts through the crowd, a hundred oars strike the water at the same moment, propelling a 100-foot wooden cobra-shaped boat forward as if it were one enormous living thing.

This is vallam kali, Kerala's snake boat race, and every monsoon it turns the state's calm backwaters into the stage for one of India's most thrilling sporting spectacles. Between the months of June and September, thousands gather on the banks of Punnamada Lake, the Pamba River and Vembanad Lake to watch it happen. 

But behind the spectacle is something just as fascinating as the race itself: centuries of naval engineering and human rhythm working together to make these massive boats fly across the water.

Born as a weapon, reborn as a race

The story begins with a war. In the 13th or 14th century, two feudal kingdoms in central Kerala, Chembakassery and Kayamkulam, were locked in conflict, and popular legend says King Devanarayana of Chembakassery kept losing because his war canoes were too slow. 

So he commissioned something faster: a long, low, snake-shaped war boat built to slip through narrow backwater channels and outrun the enemy. 

Centuries later, when the wars ended, the........

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