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| Family and friends converge to laud
Bilal’s Incredible Feat Story & photos Girish Modi Coming to think of it - in every parent’s life there are three distinct occasions that they cherish the most – when the child is born, when the child graduates from high school and when the child enters wedlock. Each year hundreds of thousands of second generation children of South-Asian communities of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis graduate from schools around the country and make their parents proud. Some of the students excel with ‘A’ grades and some of them win Spelling Bee contests on the way. But most of these accomplishments are commonplace and pale into insignificance 
when compared with the extraordinary feat of boy named Bilal,
whose parents Zia and Yasmin Rehman had migrated to Atlanta area
some 30 years ago. They have five promising children – two sons
and three daughters. To the disconnected outsiders, their family may look like any other and nothing uncommon. But strangely, none except some of his close relatives and classmates know about the shortcoming of their younger son Bilal – at least until last night. Bilal is physically disabled and mentally retarded right from his childhood. Their family celebrated on June 11th his high school graduation along with 300 guests at the Monarch Banquet Hall in Duluth. It was indeed a moment of rapturous delight for Bilal’s parents and siblings and a moment of disbelief to many guests. The program started with the customary introduction of each family member followed by the traditional cutting of cake. The highlight of the celebrations was Bilal being blessed by his nonagenarian grandmother, who had specially flown in from Pakistan. Each family member showered encomiums on Bilal for his extraordinary accomplishment and expressed their solidarity. In a voice choked with emotion, his mother told the guests how formidable a task it was for the whole family to continually support Bilal during these 17 long years. She fervently wished no family should experience the type of ordeals they had undergone all these years. Bilal’s special education teacher of Gwinnett High School came early to present a special karate belt to Bilal but could not stay on to partake in the celebration because of prior commitment. The teacher hailed Bilal as an intelligent student who could grasp lessons quickly and he also evinced keen interest in all kinds of extra-curricular activities including sporting events. A sumptuous dinner was followed by an entertaining musical program. Mahuva Mukherjee sang a few old Lata Mangeshker’s songs and Ali Asani sang a couple of Mukesh’s hits and Mehndi Hasan’s ghazals. Ajaz Naqvi sprang a surprise by singing a couple of Rafi’s songs and Renu Bakshi accompanied by her husband sang a couple of songs recapturing the memorable era of K. L. Saigal and Kursheed. Aslam Pervez, a well-known community leader, who is still recuperating from his surgery, was the emcee. Bilal’s rare achievement reminds one of a deaf and dumb girl (played brilliantly by Rani Mukherji) in the movie “Black”. She, through indefatigable hard work and dogged determination and steadfastly supported by her teacher (played by Amitabh Bachchan) realizes her dreams. Bilal is set to replicate the story of the dumb girl and will successively render remarkable feats. Congrats Bilal – you are going to be the future beacon light to a lot of similarly disabled children! |