Two buttersMore struggles with Inglish

The following is an extract from the travel book A River of Life: Travels through Modern India.

Two men join me at my table after I have finished my meal - I am sipping chai, they order the same - and assuage me of my earlier thoughts that this is a no-speak-English Brigadoon of a town, although the English that they have is limited and often taxing.

"I am having two butters," one of them tells me. This is interesting information. I wait for his rich, oily dish of food to materialise. "You also having butters?" he asks, at which point the formulaic nature of questions by Indians make it obvious what he means.

"No," I tell him, "only sisters. Two of them."

His face shows disappointment. "Only sitters?" he says. Perhaps he is sorry for my parents, who have more daughters than sons. The men are young, possibly only a year out of schooling. They keep chatting between themselves in slack moments of conversation and laughing. The first and most voluble of them decides to test me on geography.

"You can tell me what is the capital of Rome?"

The other man points out his mistake before I can unthinkingly answer "Italy". He asks me the capital of France instead. Then Canada. That stumps me for a while: I get it wrong twice.

"What is the capital of Wallace?" he asks next. I ask him to repeat it. "Wallace," he says, "Wallace," starting to get a little cross at my non-understanding. I tell him I don't know. He grins hugely at my ignorance and tells me. The answer is Cardiff.