I beg your pah-don!

We've learnt all our sophisticated tricks from the Brits. Balancing a spoon, knife and fork simultaneously while pecking at the food, for example. All the civilized behavior, polite references to the weather, spice-less cooking, buttering the bread with the knife, and holding that stiff upper lip stature, we have lapped it all up. So much so, we've also tried to emulate their humor into our lives – we've laughed at the way we even bother to simulate the British in our lives and why and how!
I've picked up the “I'm fine, thankyou” so well, and have improvised so much on it that it almost sounds like an insult. “The talkies” - In Bangalore, you can always get to “Sanjeev Talkies” pronounced as “takiz” by the auto rickshaw drivers and not a Cinema Hall. The “Town Hall” and the Koshys are one of the better things that stayed behind, so much so I bet a lot of people would leave with the Koshys if it left!
In countries like India, where nothing is a forbidden topic – like your most distantly related aunt asking how much you earn in the most public forum she had been to – the polite English come across as rude. (But yes, aunts of course, are universally formidable creatures.) “I don't think so” “Not quite” “If you wish to” have been suitably contorted to mean mean things in India, where not wanting to reply to a question is considered rather rude. (Of late, what I plan to do with my life is the aunt-discussion topic)
Its impossible to throw out a colonial rule of a century from our country. Its idiosyncrasies have led to my grandfather knowing the Julius Caesar by heart, my grandmother knowing the Wren and Martin and me gaping in astonishment, while struggling to explain what the “past participle” is. (Seriously, what the heck is it?). Due to weird circumstances, I stand wearing a pair of socks when at home, using the apron while cooking and going “splendid!” when the culinary experiment turns out all right.
Its a “rather sunny day” and the weather is “just the day for fishing”, we can sail in the “Catamaran”. Its a “Mulligatawny” soup for “supp-her” and its always time for “high-tea”. The political rally had the politician acting as a “juggernaut” and Sachin Tendulkar is a “Mogul” of cricket. We have taken the cricket and made it our own, turned the game of hockey around – given them the polo.
The Bland English has so finely been blended into spicy Indian curry, that the cuisine comes served with a smile. And I have great reason to believe that one of the finest things that we got from the Brits, is “Carry on, Jeeves” and “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. But if you're asking me how much of Charles Dickens I have read, I'll have to say “I beg your pah-don!”