It’s my mother tongue, but I cannot say that I am fluent in siraikee, since I spent most of time outside of Multan- the siraikee heartland. It is ironic in a sense that my parents speak siraikee with each other, although, my siblings and I mostly spoke Urdu. Nonetheless, it’s something you heard on daily basis, and whenever in Multan with relatives, it has been never a problem to switch back to siraikee.
I think my biggest motivation to learn, and effortlessly speak siraikee came through my little cousins when I was in Pakistan last, who could speak much fluently and with perfect accent. My siraikee at times sounded phony and unnatural in the beginning, but I stuck to it and became quite good. Despite the fact, my older cousins and friends would make fun; all I wanted to do was immerse myself in the sweetness and eloquence of siraikee, only because I had missed it overwhelmingly over the period of time. I also felt quite rude in responding to elders, since all of them only spoke siraikee. So all in all it was fun, and I am sure I will need a short crash course in fluency, once again when I go back. I must confess that one of the only few situations I have always felt shy is when asked by someone, "say something in siraike", not because it's rude or something, you just don't know what to say, and the first thing that always comes to your mind
However, if someone walks up to me and start speaking siraike, then it's a whole different scenario.
It’s not only the language, but the whole siraikee culture revolves around courtesy, politeness and openheartedness. I think the language itself inherits its character from the people, who have these roots ingrained. It’s spoken mostly in Southern and western parts of Punjab. There are some areas of Baluchistan adjacent to the siraikee areas of Punjab, such as Rakhni and Loralai, where I have heard people speaking siraikee. Also in parts of NWFP such as Dera Ismail Khan, where majority of the people are bilingual- they speak both pushto and siraikee, and their language is as pure as the one spoken in Multan.
Many people think siraikee to be just another dialect of Punjabi, which is inaccurate. We may share vocabulary, but there are a lot of different phrases and words only inherent to this language alone.