The Sound of Muruku

When we think of beautiful sounds, we tend to reach for the obvious ones: our favorite music, rain against a window, waves on the shore, birdsong in the morning. These are the kinds of sounds that end up in our playlists.

The more I tune in, the more I see that sound lives much closer to us than that.

What is the specific sound of a beloved place? What does your favorite person sound like when they are not speaking? What did your childhood sound like? What are the soundscapes of the things we inhabit every day: our homes, our kitchens, our streets, our seasons?

Some sounds would mean nothing to a stranger, but hold an entire world for you.

As we approach summer in Atlanta, I have been thinking about my childhood summers in Hyderabad. I can almost hear the whirr of the ceiling fan, the call of the street vendor selling raw mango slices, the hum of ACs working too hard, mangoes being sliced against a steel plate, children on break playing cricket somewhere in the near distance, and the sudden, theatrical arrival of rain when the weather gods decided to give us a break from the scorching heat.

And, most of all, I remember the sounds from the kitchen.

In a South Indian kitchen, there is so much to hear: mustard seeds popping in hot oil, dosa batter meeting a hot tawa, rice being rinsed in a steel bowl, a ladle scraping the bottom of a pot, the unmistakable sound of a mortar and pestle in use.

But perhaps the most vivid soundscape of my childhood was even more specific: muruku-making.

If you did not grow up with muruku, imagine a savory, deeply crunchy snack made from a dough of rice flour, black gram flour, spices, seeds, and fat. In Tamil, murukku means “to twist,” and the dough is pressed into coils, spirals, or ridged strands, bearing the unique marks of the press that shapes it, before being fried until crisp.

Murukus are usually made in generous batches, enough to fill tins for festivals, guests, travel, or everyday afternoon hunger. And if murukus were being made, they did not simply appear in a bowl. The whole house knew they were coming.

First came the gathering.

Women came together, talking, laughing, comparing, correcting, instructing. Someone mixed the dough, someone checked whether it was too tight or too soft, someone filled the murukku press, someone watched the oil, someone warned the children away from the stove.

In the summers, this activity seemed even more frenetic. Little hands, released from schoolwork, hovered nearby, eager to help, steal a broken piece, or simply be part of the excitement.

Muruku-making was also the sound of women’s knowledge at work. Some recipes are inherited through taste, some through smell, and some through sound. Making murukus was knowledge carried in the hand, the ear, and the eye, rather than written down in exact grams and minutes.

There was a rhythm to it: the press being turned, the dough coiling into shape, the first muruku slipping into hot oil, the oil bubbling around its edges, the batch settling, the metal skimmer lifting each spiral out, the soft clink as it landed against a steel plate to cool.

Much of this was learned through correction and repetition, through one generation listening while another made.

Is the dough pliable enough? Is the oil hot enough? Is the muruku browning too quickly? Has the oil gone too quiet? Is the sizzle too fierce?

Murukus carried the sound of abundance in its most practical and generous form: enough for guests, enough for children, enough to pack, enough to send, enough to keep in a tin for weeks ahead.

And after all that came the sound everyone was waiting for: the crunch.

A muruku doesn’t just taste good; it sounds good. Its crispness is part of its pleasure, its structure, its freshness, its joy. That crunch tells you it has been fried well, cooled properly, stored carefully, and made with the kind of attention that cannot be rushed.

After the busy music of making comes the quieter pleasure of eating: a tin opened in the afternoon, one muruku lifted out carefully, a bite taken alone, beside someone else, or while passing through the kitchen. The sound changes then. It becomes smaller, more private: the crunch of being comforted.

That is what Peeku knows and loves about murukus. They begin as a kitchen sound and end as a crunch. In between lies a whole world: many hands, hot oil, practiced instinct, recipes remembered by the body, and the unmistakable music of a house preparing something good.

So, as we continue to celebrate five years of Peeku, we are listening more closely to the sounds that shaped us: the sounds that told us we were home, the sounds of care and comfort.

And we are beginning with murukus: crisp, savory, deeply snackable spirals of memory and joy, made to be heard as much as tasted.