Number of word: 182

There is a chivalrous tradition behind the Aranmula boat race. Centuries earlier, the priest of the temple had to come by boat from his village which was several miles upstream to perform the puja during the annual festival of that temple. He had custody of the ornaments of the deity of the temple. On the festival day the deity had to be adorned and taken on caparisoned elephants to the river to be bathed. One day bandits in river boats intercepted the priest’s boat and tried to rob him of the ornaments. As a precaution, the villagers along the riverbank then decided to have a snake-boat in each village which would escort the priest’s boat from village to village until he reached Aranmula. This procession went down at night so that the priest reached the temple in the morning. Once the boats and the men delivered the priest safely to the temple they made merry and indulged in a race which, over the centuries, has become a popular festival. 

Excerpted from Page 16 of ‘To Challenge and To Change’ by T. Thomas