The Unassuming Heft of Murmura

Known as laiya, muri, pori and by other regional names, puffed rice is a beloved ingredient across India. Belying its lightweight appearance, murmura holds its own in every context—from the sacred to the street

TEXT Shirin Mehrotra PHOTOGRAPHY Vikas Munipalle

“Bhaiya, ek geela bhel banana….medium spicy aur

extra puri.” (Brother, make a wet bhel…medium spicy and add an extra puri). This used to be my standard order at the bhel puri stall near my workplace in Mumbai. Packed in a newspaper cone, bhel is an afterwork snack for many Mumbaikars commuting by the local train network. It’s easy to carry, non-messy if you opt for sukha or dry bhel (a version that is made without chutneys), and comes with its own spoon in the form of a puri, a crisp, deep-fried disc of flour that doubles as a scoop of sorts.

Bhel is a Marathi word which loosely translates to mixture. It is the perfect moniker for a snack that is a riot of ingredients, textures and flavours. These include murmura or puffed rice, peanuts, roasted gram, thin sev (or strings of deep-fried gram flour), chopped onions, green chillies, fresh coriander, boiled potato, and finely chopped pieces of green mango in the summer. The ingredients are tied together with teekha-meetha (or spicy and sweet) chutneys.

The hero of bhel—and a rather humble one—is puffed rice, which is known by a variety of names across India, including murmura or mamra in Maharashtra and Gujarat. The crisp, extremely light, and mildly savoury snack is eaten across India in various forms.

In Maharashtra, apart from the ubiquitous bhel, puffed rice is also turned into bhadang. This spicy, garlicky snack is popular in south-west Maharashtra, which is known for its robust flavours and heavy use of chillies and other spices. Bhadang, the Marathi word for puffed rice, is also believed to be the root of the word bhel.

"The first mention of puffed rice in South Asia occurs in post-Rig Vedic texts (written between 1200-1000 BCE). Laja, the Sanskrit name for puffed rice, was made by slow roasting soaked and unhusked paddy in hot sand."

“Bhadang is pretty much a staple in all parts of Maharashtra, and each family makes it their own way with differences in masalas and with more or [fewer] ingredients,” says culinary consultant and author Saee Koranne-Khandekar. “Some must have peanuts, some also add roasted chana dal and coconut slivers.”

In her book Pangat, a Feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens, which chronicles regional cuisines and stories from Maharashtra, Koranne-Khandekar shares a recipe of bhadang where murmura is tossed with green chillies, coriander, garlic, peanuts, coconut slivers and spices, and stored in airtight containers to be eaten for days. She also tells me about another dish cooked in southwest and central Maharashtra, and in North Karnataka. Sushla is named for the sound that puffed rice makes when soaked in water. In this iteration, murmura is tossed with mustard seeds, curry leaves, green chillies, onions and coarsely ground chana dal. As opposed to bhadang, which is a dry snack with all its crunch intact, sushla is a bit soft. In all these versions, puffed rice takes on the flavour of the more robust ingredients such as curry leaves, garlic or coconut slivers.

Further down the western coast, which extends from Gujarat to Kerala along the Arabian Sea, the streets of

Mangalore are lined with carts selling churmuri. In this version of bhel, puffed rice is tossed with grated carrots, boiled potatoes, chopped onions, tomatoes, green chillies, boiled eggs, and lime juice. A dash of raw coconut oil adds a bit of sweetness and aroma to the snack.

“Churmuri used to be my lunch during college days,” says journalist and food writer Ruth Dsouza Prabhu.

But that’s not the only way puffed rice is eaten in the region. “On the beaches of Mangalore, you’ll [also] find vendors selling pachudi—puffed rice mixed with a spicy, tangy green mango pickle served in small paper cups,” she says.

In North Karnataka, mandakki or girmit is sold on streets as well as made at home. This pungent dish is marked by the generous use of chillies, the sharpness of curry leaves and the sourness of tamarind. Unlike the raw coconut oil added in churmuri, the spices used in girmit are fried in coconut oil along with onions. They are then cooked with tamarind water and putani powder (a spice mix made of roasted gram, peanuts, garlic and chilli powder) to form the masala in which the puffed rice is tossed.

And in the old markets of Chennai, small shops sell pori kadala or puffed rice mixed with any kind of gram or nut (such as roasted peanuts, fried gram and roasted chana), which is popular as an evening snack.

The first mention of puffed rice in South Asia occurs in postRig Vedic texts (written between 1200-1000 BCE). Laja, the Sanskrit name for puffed rice, was made by slow roasting soaked and unhusked paddy in hot sand. In Ayurveda, it is described as a light and easily digestible food that cures various ailments. There is mention of a saturated drink made with laja and honey, and a dish of powdered laja paired with sugarcane pieces fried in ghee, eaten with honey.

The significance of puffed rice is evident by the fact that its uses extend beyond the culinary world. In the Grihya Sutras, a series of manuals detailing the ceremonies that mark each stage of an individual’s life, offering puffed rice to fire is noted as a significant ritual. The custom is based on the association of rice with prosperity and fertility.

“In Tamil Nadu we offer pori urundai (laddoos made of puffed rice and jaggery) to Lord Murugan during Kartikeya

Puja,” said Chennai-based chef and culinary researcher, Rakesh Raghunathan. “During Ayudha Pooja [the penultimate day of the nine-day festival called Navratri when people worship their equipment and vehicles], a mixture of flattened rice (or aval in Tamil), puffed rice, roasted gram [and] powdered jaggery is placed over a banana leaf and distributed.”

My own memories of laiya or muri—the local name for puffed rice in North, East and North East India—are strongly associated with the festival of Diwali. In Lucknow, where my family is based, the markets are flooded with mounds of puffed rice, which is a part of prasad or sacred offerings, along with kheel (or popped rice), batasha (small discs made of sugar) and khilaune (animal-shaped toys made with sugar). Since Diwali coincides with the paddy harvest, the new crop is offered to the deities in the form of puffed or popped rice.

In my home, most of the laiya and kheel purchased during Diwali turns into phodni—a tea-time snack made with puffed rice, makhana or foxnuts, peanuts and roasted gram, with an addition of colourful fryums. My mother used to add some homemade garam masala to this otherwise bland snack. On some days we would pair it with green chilli pickle or add it to a sandwich with lots of butter and ketchup. During my undergrad days living in a hostel, phodni mixed with chopped onions and tomato ketchup fuelled my friends and I during long nights of writing assignments, while also saving us from the terrible mess food.

Despite its association with festivals, laiya has inevitably made its way to the streets.

In Allahabad, churmura is a street-side speciality, made with nearly the similar ingredients as the Mumbai bhel puri, but with the addition of tamarind water, which adds a tongue-curling sourness to it. Further towards the north east, the tamarind water is replaced with spicy, garlic-laden chutney on the ghats (or river banks) of Varanasi.

While puffed rice has takers across India in the form of street food and savoury as well as sweet snacks, no other region has taken to it with as much gusto as West Bengal and Odisha. Both these states in the country’s east have a deep cultural connection to rice, since the extremely fertile soil is conducive to paddy cultivation.

Rice in its various forms, including puffed rice, formed a major portion of the diet in pre-colonial Bengal. According to a government report published in 1940, out of the 3,600 calories prescribed for a healthy diet, Bengalis received 3,500 calories just from eating rice. As Ph.D. scholar Suvajit Halder notes in Our Food Their Food: A Historical Overview of the Bengali platter, when British biscuits and bread started replacing local foods, there was opposition to the trend from Bengal.

In Bengal then, it was not uncommon for people to eat puffed rice for breakfast, snacks and even main meals.

“My grandmother used to make muri by the tins at home. In the evening we would smash a samosa or aloo chop and mix it with muri with some finely chopped onions and eat it,” says Shweta Mohapatra who runs an Instagram account focused on food stories from Odisha.

Before breakfast cereals from the West became popular, muri was a popular breakfast choice. Food researcher and writer Shubhra Chatterjee tells me that in older times, muri was often mixed with milk or yoghurt to be eaten for breakfast. A squashed banana, aam papad (thin strips of candied mango) or sandesh (a Bengali sweet made with milk solids) contributed a spot of sweetness to this dish. On the streets of Kolkata, jhal muri attracts large crowds. A mashup of the words jhal, which loosely means hot in Bengali, and muri, which is the local word for puffed rice, this snack is distinguished by the addition of raw mustard oil. Puffed rice is mixed with roasted gram, peanuts, onions and green chillies, with the mustard oil adding signature pungency. A generous dose of lime juice is added to cut the sharpness of mustard oil.

Food historian and author Pritha Sen pins down the popularity of jhal muri on the streets of Kolkata to the World Wars.

“The street food in Calcutta started coming up when the city was burgeoning into a metropolis especially during the wars,” said Sen.

Puffed rice has acquired a certain glamour quotient in the context of street food. However, in some contexts, there is also a social stigma associated with eating it.

As she explained, Bengalis working with the British administration were roped in to deal with the fallout of the war, and daily wage labourers were brought in for construction work around north and central Calcutta. There was a demand for quick and cheap food to feed this growing population, and that’s what led to the creation of street food (including jhal muri) in these parts of the city.

Once you move beyond Kolkata, muri or puffed rice holds a larger meaning, especially in the rural parts of the region.

“In West Bengal there are various varieties made from different strains of rice, which also dictates taste,” said Sen. “In the rural areas of West Bengal [and Odisha], people simply substitute muri for rice. In fact, many rural folk, especially those hailing from Bankura, Birbhum, Bardhaman (located in the north and northwestern part of West Bengal), etc. prefer muri to rice when pairing with vegetables or meats.”

Bankura is famous for Kenjakura Muri Mela, an annual puffed rice festival, which takes place on the banks of the Dwarkeshwar River. During the magh month of the Hindu calendar (mid-January to mid-February), people from nearby villages would travel to a local temple in Kenjakura village in Bankura to offer prayers.

“It was a long journey and so they would carry muri with them,” said Diptajyoti Mitra, a Pune-based management consultant and former restaurateur, who grew up in Bankura in the 1970s and ‘80s. “They soaked [the mura] in water taken from the river, mixed it with chhachi piyaj (shallots), green chillies, tele bhaja (or deep-fried fritters), aloo dum (a gravied potato dish), ghughni (boiled and mashed white peas) or chops sold at the local shops and eat it sitting by the banks of the river.”

Over time, this became a ritual of its own and eventually turned into a fair of sorts, with people going in large groups carrying muri with them and stalls selling all sorts of snacks to be mixed with it.

Muri is deeply rooted in Bankura’s social and cultural life. The region is economically poor and the land isn’t very fertile. Muri makes for a cheaper alternative for the working class when compared to rice. It is also easier to carry for the adivasis who migrate to these parts to work on the fields during sowing and harvesting seasons. The landowners who engage daily wage labourers on their agriculture farms keep sacks of muri for their workers.

“The locals here consume muri in large quantities,” says Mitra. “For a person from Bankura, jhal muri is an urban person’s food. The small quantity of jhal muri sold on the streets and its price wouldn’t be sustainable for a rural person.”

Puffed rice has acquired a certain glamour quotient in the context of street food. Take for instance Mumbai’s bhel puri, which has become a big draw thanks to Hindi films. Or a London-based food cart called Jhal Muri Express that has made the snack famous. However, in some contexts, there is also a social stigma associated with eating it. Krishnendu Ray, associate professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, remembers eating muri as a snack or as breakfast. But never as a meal.

“Muri was made at homes in Odisha, but never in a Bengali household,” said Ray, whose mother is Odiya and father was Bengali. “It was seen as a bazaar commodity among the Bengali bhadrolok (upper caste and upper class Bengalis).”

According to Ray, it was acceptable to eat muri on the streets, but it had no place in the refined cuisine of the Bengali middle class, which was taking shape during the colonial period.

“Muri itself is not shameful or [seen as] contaminating of class," explained Ray. "As long as it is retained as a snack and maybe as breakfast. But as a meal it’s clearly a sign of poverty and rurality for the upwardly mobile, aspiring middle class.”

Muri’s recent claim to fame was its inclusion in the "Make In India" programme launched by the Indian government in 2014. It was among 12 traditional foods to be promoted in the global market. The project focused on the standardisation, mass production and marketing of these foods. Muri represented the state of Odisha, casting the spotlight on the state’s cuisine, which often gets overshadowed by West Bengal given the similarity in their food cultures.

In Odisha, muri is vastly popular in the Mayurbhanj region, located in the northeast corner of the state. Muri mansa, a combination of muri eaten with spicy mutton curry, forms a unique identity for the people of Mayurbhanj. It’s believed that the dish was invented in the military kitchens of King Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 268 to 232 BCE.

“Muri is light, hence the soldiers would carry it along. They would typically hunt a goat or a wild animal, cook it into a curry and eat with muri,” said Madhulika Dash, food writer and co-founder of Kalinga Stories, an Odisha-based food pop-up. “Muri mansa is loved by the royals as well as the common people.”

According to Krishnendu Ray, the attraction of muri mansa lies in its juxtaposition of a poor man’s food with access to expensive protein and the exclusivity of courtly cuisine.

“It brings together almost two different kinds of class artefacts,” he said. To Ray, muri mansa is a means of creating a distinct Odiya identity by bringing together the foods of the high and the low. “Muri’s power is its portability.”

And suddenly it all makes sense to me—why my mother would pack two kilos of phodni for me to carry back to the hostel when I was studying, or why it lends itself so naturally to street food across the country. Travellers and soldiers carried puffed rice on long journeys because it wouldn’t spoil. Its lightness is also an asset for street food vendors, who often carry their portable stands along with the ingredients from place to place.

Besides in the literal sense, as Ray points out, muri is portable because it can occupy many roles on our plates. It can at once be a pocket-friendly meal, a snack when entertaining guests or a delicacy worthy of piety and pomp. Despite its simplicity—and perhaps because of it—it has a treasured place in the Indian kitchen.