Chaiiwala Cafe, linguistics, a collab idea and my feud with greenflies (more interesting than it sounds, promise)

If you don’t like linguistic stuff, ignore the first few paragraphs. It gets more interesting further down!

To kick off, let’s talk cafe, and more specifically, Chaiiwala. Chaiiwala, as you may know, is a pretty popular cafe chain here in the UK, and the name more or less means ‘tea guy’, except that the guy bit is implied and not actually the translation of ‘wala’, but I won’t bore you with that.

*scratches chin*

Change of mind, I will: chai (or ‘chaii’), as you probably already know from common language, means ‘tea’ – the ‘wala’ part isn’t guy, but rather is something kind of… possessive, idk the correct terminology. So it’s kinda like saying ‘the one with tea’, and thus if it were, say, ‘chai wala darwaza’, darwaza being Urdu/Hindi for door, it’d mean ‘the door of the tea’ more or less. Something similar in English would be… hmm… maybe like if a cook were called a cooker. Something like that.

That’s all that I have here on linguitics – I think.

Hmm…

Wait, there’s a teeny little bit more: Chaiiwala serves a drink called limbu pani. Sounds exotic, doesn’t it? Well it isn’t. And it doesn’t, not to those who understand what it means anyway. To address the first bit, it’s just plain simple lemonade (not saying that’s not nice, but it’s not really exotic). And then limbu pani literally means ‘lemon water’ in Urdu/Hindi. Which actually sounds cheap. Unlike its price.

And my final linguistic gripe is that it’s not even supposed to be ‘limbu’ – it’s ‘leemu’. Where the heck did they get limbu from?

I got this pic off Bing (although usually I use Google, but rn I’m using Microsoft Edge and therefore Bing) – a Chaiiwala in Huddersfield, apparently in a rather old building.

The bit below is more interesting, or at least less boring, and maybe just a little bit fun.

I should mention how this post materialised, actually. Originally, it was just gonna be about why I hate – or at least dislike – greenflies. Yeah, really. But then, sitting in our car on the hot and sunny afternoon a couple of Sundays ago (not yesterday, when I was camping, climbing a muntain and swimming in a river in Snowdonia National Park in sunny, coastal mid-Wales – I shall inshaAllah do a post on it soon enough – nor the Sunday before that, when it was cloudy, windy and rainy, but the a week even before that, when I started writing this post) just as I had my iced limbu chaii, I had a brainwave: why not make a more chatty post? As the day went on, my ideas evolved – now I want to make this a monthly (or every couple of months) collab series with anyone else who’s willing. It will involve say three questions from me, which you’d answer, I’d comment on them, and then the same from you, in a chatty, conversational tone – lemme show you how it could go, in this interview with The Pasta Lad of the fictional blog, eatingpasta.wordpress.com (originally, it was gonna be ieatpasta.wordpress.com, until it turned out it was a real blog lol upon checking it just in case (lucky I did) – check it out here!):

(everything I’m saying is in bold, while The Pasta Lad’s stuff is in italics)

Welcome, Pasta Lad, and have a cup of tea! First I’ll ask a few questions, then you can ask me some!

Thanks for having me!

My first question for you is this: how do you feel being a blogger about pasta?

— [I can’t be bothered to type anything, you’ll just have to live with this]

— [and you’ll have to live with this too. Just read the next question and answer, go on.]

What do you think about keeping cats as pets?

I think they’re the best! Amazing! Awesome! Fantastic! Fabulous! Great! Lovely! Amusing! Pasta! Amazing! I like cats quite a bit, but at the end of the day, I prefer my pet waffle, Jim the Second. My mum ate the first with cream and chocolate spread, it still makes me weep till this day.

You seem really enthusiastic about cats – I really love them too! In fact I’ve done a few posts on a particular cat nearby, you might wanna read them! Never heard of anyone keeping a pet waffle, that’s an, erm… interesting choice, and I’m sorry to hear about your tragic loss.

[Insert a question about owning a pet waffle here]

[Insert a very nearly humorous answer by The Pasta Lad here]

[Insert my response here]

One thing that happened recently is that in just one day, your amount of followers went from 3 to 42 – how did that happen? Any tips?

What actually happened is, you see, I posted a video on YouTube which went viral! It was a pirated episode of Top Gear and managed to get a shocking 25 views in just 2 days!!! Totally viral! I included my blog in the video description! Of course, 42 minus 3, so my new followers, equals 40 obviously, so that means, using common sense, some of the 25 views would’ve been families, and so many people would have subscribed! You only need 15 of them views to be 2 or more people, and voila, I’ve got so many followers! Btw I checked my followers and surprisingly I can’t find you in them… They would’ve naturally checked out my blog and been enticed by how aesthetic it looks and how interesting the posts are – I also try and post regularly, so I’m sure that increased its appeal! I understand though you’ve only got 90 followers in all this time, it’s just your blog looks so basic and ugly compared to mine, no offence at all, yeah. Any tips – well, just make your blog more like mine.

Look at my blog – amazing and aesthetic, wouldn’t you agree?!

I can assure you tho I definitely did not make up multiple email and WordPress accounts to fake my follower count, no, I defo would never imagine doing that lol.

Hmm… right, interesting, and not too much offence taken. I must say, erm, that’s a unique blog design! About the last bit, I didn’t ask you, but OK… if you say so. And oh, I’m not following your blog then? I’ll look into that…

-END OF SKETCH-

Lol. Well anyway, then The Pasta Lad would then ask me say about 3-5 questions, and then we end the post. I couldn’t be bothered to think of the kind of questions he’d ask, and I think I’d have bored you guys out if I did.

Are you willing to do an interview-style thing like this, next month? If so, please lemme know below in the comments!

I’m not expecting many willing participants, and really I’m only doing it for fun, nothing else.

Here’s the original greenfly bit

Now then: my feud with greenflies. Quite apart from the fact that they’re shockingly stubborn despite their delicate nature, there is reason why there is a beef between me and the species, and here it is, below in this post.

But first, let me tell you why I decided to write about them: it’s greenfly season. Well, it was when I started writing it. You see this small, green aphid literally everywhere for those few early-summer weeks, and while they hardly pose a threat to anyone, they are a pest and threat to some plants, especially in larger numbers, as they drink their sap. Ladybirds prey on ’em, and I’m glad they do. Firstly because I like ladybirds and secondly because I don’t like greenflies.

Two events happened to me because of which I really don’t like greenflies: the more recent one is basically, a few weeks back when I was slightly ill, I found myself sitting in the car, waiting for my dad, using the phone, and then… a greenfly comes and sits on my eyelashes whilst they are open. Annoying and definitely not fun.

The second is weirder and… gross. Wind back a few years, and me and my parents were sitting on a bench in Regent’s Park in the cafe area by its boating lake. Practically every Londoner would have an idea what I’m talking about, but if you don’t, Regent’s Park is one of Central London’s most famous parks (along with Hyde Park and maybe some others). I had a coleslaw sandwich packed at home. I started eating it, but I hadn’t eaten too much of it when a greenfly landed on it on the other side. It was disgusting at the time, especially as that greenfly was pretty much the same colour as the cabbage in the coleslaw. I believe I threw that bit away and was made to eat the rest of it.

These two incidents probably are among the reasons I don’t like them. And- no, I’ve had enough. Now I can’t write any more, for real.

AHH this post was wayyy longer than I expected! Including the greenfly bit may not have been such a wise idea.

Anyhow, it’s done now. Phew!!!

Thanks for having the patience to read through all this. I didn’t, so I haven’t read it through properly. And lemme know below if you’d wanna do such a collab!