I have been trying to learn some Bengali sign language and it has been fun for me to try to communicate with Abdul. I feel bad about regional sign languages; they seem like languages with little history or cultural attachment and I get this idea in my hide that there should be a big international council where everyone who is deaf should come together and learn a universal language for all the abstract words which are communicated with abstract gestures so that much of sign language could be the same anywhere, and perhaps signing could become a diplomatic international language. Bengali sign language is supposed to be different from sign language elsewhere in India, plus is is still fairly new.
Abdul is illiterate. I have read online that the large majority of deaf people get almost no education, and almost all of them are illiterate. It might be this way everywhere in the world if it happens in such an educated developing city as Kolkata. I have no idea what can be done for the education of such people. Should they learn to read their local language? Should they just start with English to improve their job prospects and give them internet, since they are mute and cannot read lips anyway?
Nandan knows some people in the Bengali sign language NGO community. Apparently there are more foreigners promoting community in the Bengali sign language community than there are Bengalis, as Abdul knew two NGOs which are not the NGO with which Nandan had worked, and both of them were run by foreign people.
Sarukh is illiterate also. I am not sure what to think about this. It seems strange to me that he is like Mark; a person who speaks good English but cannot read or write anything. Both of those guys know English and two Indian languages. How does that happen?