Chai Ki Duniya
A tiny corner of the internet that feels like a roadside chai stall: warm light, old songs and a cup of cutting chai.
- Role
- Concept, design & development
- Timeline
- 2026
- Platform
- Web · React + Vite
- Toolkit
- React · Vite · YouTube embed · Hindi + English
01
The spark
In India, chai is how a day pauses.
Every street has one: a small stall, a kettle that never cools, and people trading five minutes of conversation for a ₹10 cup. Chai Ki Duniya started with a question. Could a website feel like that pause?
It's a personal, just-for-fun project where I could design for a feeling instead of a feature list.
02
The challenge
Most interfaces are built to get people in and out fast. This one had to slow them down.
Design for mood, not tasks: a page people want to linger on, in two languages, with music I don't host.
That meant carrying atmosphere through illustration, typography and sound, mixing Hindi and English naturally, and playing nostalgic songs without hosting any copyrighted audio.
03
The approach
Set design first, then small moments of life.
I treated the page like a film set: build the scene, then add details that make it feel lived in.
- 01
An illustrated stall as the stage
A golden-hour illustration of a roadside chai stall fills the first screen, with the bold “चाय Time” title set into the scene so the mood lands before any text is read.
- 02
Hindi first, English alongside
Headings and the recipe lead in Devanagari with English beneath, so the page feels local while staying readable for everyone.
- 03
Music without hosting music
A retro player streams classic Bollywood songs through YouTube's embedded player, with a clear credit that no audio is hosted and all rights stay with their owners.
Explore the full page
The whole page: from the illustrated stall to the recipe and the stall's sign-off.
Scroll inside the window to walk through the page.
04
The work
Small details that make the stall feel alive
Live clock & chai lovers online
A clock in the corner and a live-feeling counter of people sipping along make the page feel inhabited.
Retro music player
Play, skip and set the volume on a warm, rounded player, with a link to the full playlist on YouTube Music.
Ingredients at a glance
Milk, ginger, cardamom and tea leaves, each with its Hindi name and English label.
A five-step recipe
चाय बनाने का तरीका, from boiling the water to straining the cup, in Hindi with English hints.
05
The outcome
A small, joyful site that's live and loved.
- Languages, Hindi + English
- 2
- Ingredients, each bilingual
- 4
- Steps in the chai recipe
- 5
Chai Ki Duniya is live on Vercel as a personal side project, and a reminder that the web can be a place to slow down.
It became my playground for mood-driven design, where illustration, bilingual type and sound work together.
06
What I learned
What I'm taking forward
- 01
Mood is a design requirement too. Light, type and sound carried as much as the layout did.
- 02
Bilingual typography needs its own rhythm. Devanagari and Latin need different sizes and spacing to sit comfortably together.
- 03
Respecting creators can shape the product. Embedding YouTube instead of hosting audio kept the music legal and the build simple.
