Type "chakli" into any Indian grocery site and three quite different things come back. A tin of fried spirals you can eat straight away. A bag of flour you still have to cook. And a sun-dried item meant only for fasting days, which will disappoint anyone who opens it expecting a snack. All three are labelled chakli, or chakali, and every Diwali at least one household orders the wrong one.
Diwali falls on Sunday, 8 November 2026, so faral tins start filling from the last week of October. Here is what the words on the pack actually mean, and — the part nobody tells you — how to read the price.
Bhajani is a flour, not a flavour
This is the word that does most of the work, and most people never find out what it means. Bhajani is a flour made by roasting grains and dals separately, then grinding them together. The packs on UmedMart list roasted rice, chana dal and urad dal as the base, sometimes with moong dal, plus a set of spices — cumin, ajwain and the like. Exact proportions vary by household and by SHG, which is why two bhajani chaklis from two districts taste noticeably different.
The roasting is the whole point. It is what turns the flour darker, gives it that toasted smell when the dough is being kneaded, and gives the finished chakli its savoury depth. You cannot get there by mixing raw rice flour and besan at the last minute; the flavour simply is not in the ingredients, it is in the roasting.
So when a pack says bhajani chakli, it is telling you what the dough was made from. When it says chakali bhajani or bhajani pith, it is selling you the flour itself. The words are nearly identical and the order matters. More on that in a moment.
Tandul chakli is the other main kind
Tandul is rice. A tandul chakli is made from rice flour rather than the roasted multigrain blend, and it behaves differently: paler, lighter, it snaps more cleanly between your teeth, and the taste is milder. Bhajani chakli is sturdier, darker and more savoury; it also holds up better in a tin over a fortnight.
Neither is the correct one. Households are loyal to whichever they grew up on, and the argument is unwinnable. If you are buying for someone else and have no idea which camp they belong to, bhajani is the safer guess — it is the default faral chakli across most of Maharashtra. The rice version currently on UmedMart is KGN Tandul Chakali, 1 kg, ₹492, made by KGN SHG in Jalgaon.
The one that catches people out: bhajani pith is not a snack
This is the single most common mix-up, and it happens because the flour and the finished snack sit side by side in search results under almost the same name. Chakali bhajani, bhajani pith, chakali premix — all three are bags of flour. Nothing has been fried. You still have to make the dough, work in oil and hot water, add your masala, pipe the spirals and fry them.
What the premix does save you is the tedious half of the job: roasting four or five grains and dals separately to the right shade and getting them ground. For most kitchens that is the reason to buy it rather than make bhajani from scratch.
Currently available, with the per-kilo figure worked out because the pack sizes make straight comparison impossible:
- VAINGANGA Chakali Premix, 500 g, ₹192.34 — about ₹385 a kilo, the cheapest way in.
- GURUDATTA Chakali Bhajani Pith, 500 g, ₹228 (₹456 a kilo) or the 1 kg pack at ₹348 — which works out to ₹348 a kilo, the best value of the lot if you are making a proper Diwali batch. Both from Nashik district.
- MADHURA Chakli Bhajani Flour Mix, 500 g, ₹269 — ₹538 a kilo. Bharari SHG, Amravati. The pack lists roasted rice, chana dal, urad dal and moong dal.
- SANGHARSH Chakali Bhajani Premix, 500 g, ₹288 (₹576 a kilo) or 1 kg at ₹468. Nashik district.
- SHRI PRABHU Chakali Bhajani Mix, 250 g, ₹204.32 — ₹817 a kilo, so only worth it as a trial pack; the 500 g at ₹300 brings it down to ₹600.
If you mix your own spice blend rather than relying on what is already in the bhajani, there is ADHIRA Chakli Masala, 200 g, ₹258.25 from Adhira Mahila SHG.
Buying it fried: the price spread is enormous, and it is mostly pack size
Ready-made chakli on UmedMart runs from roughly ₹378 a kilo to nearly ₹1,912 a kilo. Some of that is genuinely different product — small-batch, hand-piped, richer masala. But a good chunk of it is simply that 100 g and 200 g packs carry their packing and handling cost over very little weight. Work out the per-kilo figure before you decide anything is expensive or cheap.
- SHREE BY KIRTEE Bhajani Chakli, 500 g, ₹189 — ₹378 a kilo, and the least expensive ready-made chakli in the range by a distance. Navchaitanya SHG, Satara.
- KGN Tandul Chakali, 1 kg, ₹492 — ₹492 a kilo. The rice-flour one, from Jalgaon.
- JANAI Mix Chakli, 250 g, ₹168.37 — ₹673 a kilo.
- GURUPRASAD Mix Chakli, 1 kg, ₹712 — ₹712 a kilo. A sensible single order if you are feeding a houseful of visitors.
- SWARAJYA Khamang Chakali, 250 g, ₹228 — ₹912 a kilo. Santkrupa Mahila SHG, Solapur.
- ANUJ FOODS Handmade Chakli, 200 g, ₹192.34 — ₹962 a kilo.
- UNNATI Bhajani Chakali, 250 g, ₹288 — ₹1,152 a kilo. Unnati Women SHG, Dhule.
- Apurva's Bhajani Chakli, 200 g, ₹274.49 — ₹1,372 a kilo, and the spicier end of the range. Saheli Mahila SHG, Ratnagiri.
- Bhajanichi Kateri Chakali, 100 g, ₹154 — ₹1,540 a kilo, but it is a 100 g pack, which makes it the cheapest way to try a new maker before committing. Darling Mahila SHG, Korti, Solapur.
- SHREEDARSHANI Chakali, 250 g, ₹478 — ₹1,912 a kilo, the top of the range.
A reasonable approach for a household of four through Diwali week: one 500 g or 1 kg pack as the everyday tin, plus one small pack from a maker you have not tried. The whole range sits in the snacks collection.
Sabudana chakali is a fasting item, not faral
Same shape, entirely different product. Sabudana chakali is made from sago, sun-dried rather than fried, and it arrives raw — you fry it at home, where it puffs up pale and glassy in seconds. It belongs to upvas, not to a Diwali tin, and it is not interchangeable with the fried bhajani kind.
- PRAGATISHIL Sabudana Chakali, 500 g, ₹331.55.
- SARSWATI Sabudana Chakali, 500 g, ₹337, also in a 1 kg pack at ₹553.
- Sabudana Chakli, Shri Samarth SHG, 250 g, ₹173.
- RAYGAD Shabu Potato Chakali, 200 g, ₹172 — potato worked into the sago dough, which fries softer.
- MITKRISHNA Khandeshi Upwas Chakli, 200 g, ₹204 — Kareshwar SHG.
If that is the corner you are actually shopping in, the upvas shopping guide covers the rest of the fasting range properly.
Two chaklis on this site contain fish
Worth flagging plainly, because the word "chakli" carries no warning with it. The Konkan coast makes a version with fish worked into the dough, and UmedMart stocks two: MATSYGANDHA Seafood-Inspired Chakli, 100 g, ₹252.26 and Fish Chakli by Eklavya PG, 100 g, ₹173. Genuinely good if that is what you want, and genuinely the wrong thing to put in a vegetarian faral tin or a Diwali hamper without saying so.
What actually goes wrong when you make it at home
Two things, and they account for most failed batches.
The dough. Too dry and the spiral cracks at the edges as it comes out of the mould, then breaks apart in the oil. Too wet and it drinks oil and stays limp. It should hold a shape without sticking to your palm. The oil worked into the dough — mohan — is what makes it short and crisp rather than hard; skimp on it and you get chakli that fights back.
The heat. Chakli wants moderate oil, not the fierce heat papad needs. Too hot and the outside darkens while the inside is still raw, which is the chakli that looks perfect and turns out soft in the middle. Fry a single one first and break it open before committing the batch.
Let them cool completely on a plate before they go anywhere near a tin. Warm chakli sweats, and the condensation is what turns a good batch soft overnight.
Keeping the tin crisp
An airtight steel dabba, away from the stove and away from the window. The thing most people get wrong is tinning chakli together with chivda or ladu — anything carrying jaggery or moisture will soften the chakli sitting next to it within a couple of days. Separate tins, even if it means more tins.
If a batch has gone slightly limp, a few minutes spread out in the sun will usually bring it back, the same trick that works for papad.
The rest of the faral tin
Chakli rarely travels alone. Also available at the moment: SREE SWAMI SAMARTH Shankarpale, 200 g, ₹204.32, a besan-based ready-to-eat from Ramkrushana SHG in Latur, and MAHESHWAR Besan Ladu, 250 g, ₹214 for the sweet side. The rest of the ladu shelf — dink, methi, nachani, moha — is sorted out in our guide to Maharashtra's ladu. The papad range is covered in its own guide.
These are small-batch SHG products working to the same festival calendar as everyone else, so the faral items thin out through the last week of October. Ordering in the first half of the month leaves the groups room to pack without rushing.
Every product, price and stock position above was checked live on UmedMart on 24 September 2026. Small-batch items move quickly in festival season, so check the product page before ordering.
Related reading
- Udid, Rice, Wheat, Ragi or Potato? A Plain-English Guide to Maharashtra's Papad — the other sun-dried thing in the same tin cupboard.
- Dink, Methi, Nachani or Moha? A Plain-English Guide to Maharashtra's Ladu — the sweet half of the same faral tin.
- Bhagar, Varai, Rajgira or Sabudana? A Plain-English Upvas Shopping Guide — where sabudana chakali actually belongs.
- Goda, Kala, Kanda Lasun or Garam? A Guide to Maharashtra's Masala Blends — if you season your own chakli dough.
- Jwari, Bajri, Nachni, Vari: Maharashtra's Millet Names, Decoded — for the grains that turn up in a bhajani blend under regional names.
- Terracotta Diya, Copper Diya, or Akash Kandil? A Diwali Buying Guide — the rest of the Diwali order.
- Diwali Corporate Gifts from Maharashtra's Women SHGs: A Budget-by-Budget Guide — if the faral is going out in bulk.
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