"Linguistic Corner" - Indian English

I have decided to lightly touch upon ‘Hinglish’ or, more appropriately for Chandigarh, ‘Punglish’ (Punjabi English). Does it differ from other Englishes? It does and it does not. What do I find so fascinating about it? Nothing and everything. This is at least how I see it.
First of all, you have to bear in mind that Indians are obsessed with accents. They would ask me if they sound American or British enough. Well, not at all. But can you tell them if you see them so disappointed afterwards? I am sure anyone can easily distinguish an Indian English speaker from other nationalities. Same as you would probably, equally easily, pick up on a French person. Widz pleasure. We all speak with our accents. Even the British and Americans do. And so what? Does that really matter? In my opinion, that’s the fun of English. So many different forms and still some kind of unity. Unfortunately, this view is not commonly accepted in India. English, I mean ‘proper’ (whatever that actually means) English, is a status symbol here. Strange, considering it is the language of their colonizers. Anyway. You have to sound ‘other-than-Indian’. That is a must. Young Indians even have to go through special ‘we’ll-train-your-accent’ courses before joining their dream jobs in numerous call centres. With the following explanation: when customers call from the UK, you have to be able to speak ‘their English’ (same for the US). They would then feel more comfortable and satisfied with your service. Uh-huh. So they are even trained to switch from one accent to another. How exciting. Do you think it’s worth trying to explain that everyone knows ALL call centres are based in India? And that you should not be ashamed of the way you speak? Moreover, do you really think you can dramatically change your accent within a two-week course? All efforts in vain.
The saddest thing of all, however hard they try to improve and polish their accents (thus pronunciation), you can hardly buy flour in India if you do not pronounce it as ‘floor’. It is quite funny buying a kilo of floor every month. If you want to buy glue, you better ask for a glow, and the distinction between tree and three is absolutely none.
Another quite annoying specificity is the passion for abbreviations. Honestly, during my first week here I did not believe we were speaking the same language: I was asked what my TP was, whether I lived in a PG and worked for an NGO. The only sensible reply that came to my mind was that of ‘Yes, I work for FBI and CIA’ thinking that I have to answer in abbreviations too, and could not think of other than these silly two. Later on I learnt that TP stands for ‘timepass’ (by which they mean pastime, so they basically wanted to know what I do in my free time), PG is a paying-guest type of accommodation and NGO is short for non-governmental organization. I’ve got nothing against shortening words but how the hell am I supposed to know all this?
A final point to be made is that of ONLY. Only. If this word is not a regular insertion in your vocabulary, you’d better do something about it. Especially talking about numbers. On any kinds of receipts or tickets this is a standard. You rewrite numbers in words with ‘only’ as a closing part. So if you pay 400 rupees, in words you pay ‘rupees four hundred only’. If only.