Lucknow Urdu is extremely polite and highly expressive. The politest form of address, the second person plural (aap) is nearly always used. I observed that many parents invariably refrained from using other forms of address, even when speaking to their own children. The (aap) form is almost always used for a senior third person who is present. This caused me much confusion at first. When I came to use elsewhere what I had learned in Lucknow, I found those who understood the idioms were enthralled, often embarking immediately on a conversation in praise of Lucknow Urdu. More often than not, those who did not understand found the language esoteric, and demanded explanations. Once, while I was ill, I remember being very puzzled when a friend asked me for how long I would be ‘looking after this parrot’ (Yeh tota kab tak paliyega?). He explained that parrots were thought to be a nuisance to look after, and therefore his question was an idiomatic way of enquiring about how long I would have to put up with the inconvenience of being ill. I was also assured by two elderly gentlemen that unless one was conversant with Lucknow Urdu, in particular the Urdu spoken by women in certain areas of the old city and rarely heard nowadays called rekhti, the ambiguities and subtleties present in the language of novels, such as the famous Umrao Jan Ada (translated as The Courtesan of Lucknow)., would go unnoticed.

ref: Kippen, James (2005). The Tabla of Lucknow. Cambridge University Press.