Multi-lingual anyone?

So how many languages do you speak?
Three.
Three?? WOW!!

Whenever i say this to people here in the US i find amused and enquiring glances and often gasps in amazement. This is part of a typical conversation that I have here in the US - can't say the number of times it has been repeated - the response below has now turned out into a well rehearsed answer.

On an average every Indian would speak three different languages.
Every Indian utters his first words in his mother tongue which is invariably related to the state/region that he was born in. In school he then learns the national language Hindi so that he can converse with any other Indian in any part of the country - the common thread in the midst of 15 diverse languages. And finally English the medium of instruction in most schools. Some kids are fluent in more that one regional language and some even take up foreign languages like French and Portuguese in school.
Such an amazing feature of Indian education I had taken for granted until i came to the US. I wish I had picked up more languages when in school. There was this study that my sister once spoke about in psychology that links cognitive abilities to language skills. Right now the two topmost languages I would love to speak would unarguably be Chinese and Spanish - in that order!