When the month of Ramadan comes, the five villages of Dapdapia union in Nalchity upazila, Jhalakathi, known as Muripalli, become busy. Here puffed rice (muri) is roasted by the traditional method from nakhuchi or other coarse paddy, and it is sold beyond the country's borders. Dapdapia's coarse muri is famous everywhere for its unmatched taste. Roasting and selling muri goes on all year round, but in Ramadan the artisans get busier to meet the extra demand for muri for iftar.

They have no time to catch their breath during Ramadan. The villages of Rajakhali, Dapdapia, Timirkathi, Bharatkathi, Jurkathi and Kumarkhali in Dapdapia union lie beside the Barishal-Patuakhali regional highway. Muri is roasted day and night in these villages to meet Ramadan supply, and they are now known as "Muripalli". When Ramadan arrives, the clatter of clay pots begins at 2am, and the fires of 1,200 stoves in 300 households are lit in a festival of muri roasting to produce tasty coarse muri.

Dapdapia and the surrounding area produce 200 maunds of muri every day, which passes through wholesalers to markets across the country. As soon as Ramadan arrives, demand rises by another 100 maunds. The workers of Dapdapia's Muripalli have shown that muri roasting is an industry in itself, one that supports the lives and livelihoods of countless people. With the fasting month ahead, demand for muri has risen. In a festive mood, whole families roast muri together; hoping for a little extra income, even the elderly and children lend a hand.

Muri roasting here dates back to 1948, when Amjed of Jhurkathi began roasting muri and selling it at market. Following his example, several more families in Timirkathi started roasting and selling muri to add to their household income, and a number of villagers began to support their families this way. In the 1980s a BSc teacher named Abdul Haque encouraged wholesalers from various places to come to the village to buy muri, after which Timirkathi's muri grew in popularity.

The better-off workers buy paddy from the market themselves, process it specially into rice, roast the muri and market it themselves. Those who are less well off take rice free of charge from wholesale traders, roast muri with it and supply it back to the traders, which earns them less. On average one person can roast 50 kg of rice a day, yielding 42-43 kg of muri. Muri from here sells at Tk 75 a kg wholesale and Tk 85 retail.

Recently, however, various problems have hit the industry. Muri made cheaply in machines with chemicals and sold at lower prices has become an obstacle to the villagers' earnings. The dominance of local wholesalers and traders also leaves them little profit.

"There is more demand for our hand-roasted muri than for machine-roasted muri. We cannot supply as much muri as the wholesalers want," said Nasir Uddin, a muri artisan from Bhuiyan Bari in Timirkathi. Fatema Begum of the same village said: "We roast muri for others and get Tk 400 per sack. With that we somehow get by. Since my husband died, I have been raising my children by roasting muri."

Shahidul Islam Khan Shafiq, proprietor of Messrs Khan Brothers, said most machine-roasted muri contains harmful chemicals. Hand-roasted muri costs a little more to make, so it is a little more expensive. Demand rises several times over when the fasting month comes. The Muripalli workers have long been demanding that the muri villages be established as a commercial muri production centre.

"We believe entrepreneurs will come forward to commercialise the muri villages and create more production and jobs. We will try to bring the matter to the attention of the relevant government offices and provide patronage," said Nalchity upazila nirbahi officer Ashraful Islam.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.