“Children of the Serpent: The Kalbelias of Rajasthan”

In the heart of Rajasthan’s deserts lives the Kalbelia community—once famed as snake charmers, now celebrated across the world for their music and dance. The name itself reveals their legacy: “kal” meaning snake, and “belia” meaning friend. For generations, the Kalbelias roamed from village to village, catching snakes, drawing venom, and treating bites with traditional remedies. Their bond with serpents ran deep—so much so that even their children learned from an early age to handle snakes with startling ease, as if danger and play were one.

When laws banned snake charming, the community turned necessity into art. The serpents disappeared, but the sinuous grace of their movements survived in the Kalbelia dance. Women, dressed in brilliantly colourful skirts embroidered with mirrors and patterns that glint like desert sunlight, whirl and bend in movements that echo the snakes once cradled in their arms. Their twirls are serpentine, their sway hypnotic—an echo of their lost companions.

The men match these movements with a haunting score played on the pungi, the very instrument once used to charm cobras, now leading dancers into a trance of rhythm. The beat of the dholak and the quick strike of the khanjari weave together to create a music that is both celebratory and ancient.

Today, the Kalbelias remain semi-nomadic, their homes little more than canvas tents pitched on the fringes of villages. They travel with little except their instruments, costumes, and the art that sustains them. Despite hardship, they carry an irrepressible spirit—transforming a once-feared vocation into a dazzling cultural treasure. Recognised by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, their performances take them far from the sands of Rajasthan, yet their essence remains desert-born: proud, vibrant, and forever entwined with the serpent’s mystique.