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Journalism of Courage
The imposition of GST on puffed rice has touched a raw nerve in West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Addressing her party’s annual Martyrs’ Day rally in Kolkata on July 21, she took out some ‘muri’ — puffed rice — from her bag and called a vendor on the stage to make an angry point against the imposition of tax on the staple.
The ubiquitous ‘muri’
It’s hard to miss the ‘muri’ — ‘murmura’ in northern and western India — vendors in the streets of Kolkata, other cities and towns in the state, in markets, and in the local trains that connect the suburbs with West Bengal’s capital.
Adding chopped onions, green chillies, coriander leaves, peanuts, and a dash of mustard oil to the puffed rice, they shake their steel containers vigorously to rustle up ‘jhaal muri’, a snack that is relished as much by the babus as by the working-class — some might even add a sliver or two of coconut, and a bit of kala chana.
‘Muri’ can be part of a Bengali breakfast with ‘aloo chorchori’ (a potato hash spiced with nigella seed), and handfuls of it popped in with tea. Even without any accompaniment, ‘muri’ is a meal in itself, albeit a humble one. A large, often square, airtight tin of ‘muri’ would be found in most Bengali homes.
Much nutritive value
The origins of this light and fragile-looking version of rice are uncertain. Some ascribe ancient provenance to it. Others date the practice of heating freshly harvested rice in wide-mouthed earthen pots, half full of sand, to medieval times, around the 15th century — as an offering to the gods.
The heat pushes the grain out of the husk, and they puff up. The roasting process makes it an easy-to-digest food.
In the 1930s, the nationalist chemist and industrialist Prafulla Chandra Ray, who founded India’s first pharmaceutical company, Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, wrote an essay comparing the nutritive properties of ‘muri’, flattened rice, and biscuits.
Complete with a table describing the vitamin contents of these food items, Ray’s essay held up ‘muri’ and flattened rice as far superior to biscuits.
Outside Bengal too
But ‘muri’ isn’t just quintessential to Bengal. That it is essential to ‘bhel puri’ is well known. Andhra Pradesh has its ‘muntha masala’, Kolhapur its ‘bhadang murmura’ and Odisha has ‘muri masala’.
And then there’s the iconic ‘muri mansa’ of Mayurbhanj — mutton curry slow cooked in an earthen vessel and mixed with puffed rice and green chillies. Among the several legends associated with the dish is that the delicacy made its way to Ashoka’s kitchen after his war with Kalinga.
Could ‘muri’/ ‘murmura’ become part of Mamata Banerjee’s arsenal as she seeks to mobilise the opposition against the ruling establishment in the months to come?
