Patna: The family of Moin Moon Khan, an Indian American who won the race for trustee of York township in Illinois, says a Bihar government job he missed by one mark 20 years ago has made him what he is today.

“If (Moin) had qualified in the 1985 Bihar Public Service Commission exam, he might have ended as a magistrate or a block level officer,” says Mateen Khan, brother of Moin. The brother lives in Muzaffarpur, about 70 km from here.

Moin’s total score was one less than the cut-off marks for qualifying. “Thanks to his failure, he achieved something rare,” Mateen said, “The failure made him keen to migrate to the US (in 1986).” Recounting Moin’s journey from Muzaffarpur - where he was born, brought up and educated - to the US, father Mobin Khan says: “There is no stopping this boy.

“He will go far, achieve more. Just wait and see,” says Mobin Khan, a homeopathy doctor in Muzaffarpur’s Bhagwanpur neighbourhood where his family lives.

Moin is the first non-Caucasian to be nominated by the Republican Party of the US in DuPage county, York township, and the first Indian American to win on that party’s ticket in the county. Mobin says that though the family misses Moin, the eldest of his three sons and a daughter, everyone’s happy. “We are all proud of his achievement,” he says.

Moin’s education was most ordinary. He studied in a government school in Darbhanga district, staying at his grandfather’s house. Moin then graduated in political science from Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur. Moin’s sister Tahira Khanam says he soon completed law and picked up an MBA degree from Patna. At one point earlier, he had even learnt typing because he was eager to get a job.

Mobin recalls his son’s frequent ill health as a child that often affected studies. “Moin was not very intelligent but laborious,” he says. According to the family, Moin went to the US to become a journalist. He got a degree in journalism from Georgia University and worked for several media organisations, including the Chicago Tribune.

He moved on to computers but politics always excited him. In Illinois, Moin founded the Bihar Cultural Association and was on the boards of several organisations. Moin’s mother Lazila Khatoon can’t wait to see him. “Moin had sent a visa long ago. But now we have to visit him in the US and bless him,” she says. Moin is settled in Lombard, Illinois, with wife Shanu and 10-year-old son Shaan.

But his parents back in Muzaffarpur say Moin, a great fan of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, is still proud of his roots and eager to keep contact with his country.