Even so it remains pidgin, although our own....

Most Indians spk English almost as a first language. But just as UK and US are two nations separated by a common language, India and the rest of the English speaking world are separated by what is a "common" language. Obviously, at an operational level, English is common across the world. But that is a very restrictive use of a language. Karan Thapar has written a fascinating article on how Indian English sounds so different from the English that the English speak. One can say the same of US English or of written English across the world. There is really no need to speak English like the English or the Americans any longer (I remember this was a major aspiration for many of us couple of decades back), to be respected for one's knowledge of English.

There is one point that Karan makes here, that I find difficult to believe. He says that Indians use beautiful idioms when speaking their native tongues (Bengali, Hindi, etc.). Really?! Most Hindi and Tamil speakers I know (hey, that includes me)speak an irritating mix of the native and the "foreign" languages that is truly pidgin! Obviously, very functional and practical, but not really beautiful.