A mesmerising magic show, a heart-warming film and a sumptuous lunch - students of Jeevan Jyoti School in Dhanbad had a gala time on Thursday.

The occasion was World Autism Awareness Day when Jeevan Jyoti School and Rotary Club of Dhanbad jointly organised a special programme for 22 special students.

The special day began at a hotel in the coal capital around 10.30am with Jharia-based magician Om Prakash showing a number of popular tricks.

Magic tricks like making milk vanish from a hat by waving the wand and vanishing coins collected from the audience earned huge applause from these special children.

"The children took keen interest in the show and some of them like 14-year-old Vijay Yadav from Barwaddah and Ayush Kumar Singh (8) from Joraphatak even learnt a few tricks from Om Prakash," said special educator-cum-speech therapist of Jeevan Jyoti School Ranjit Kumar.

The organisers then screened Anurag Basu's Barfi! in which Priyanka Chopra's character Jhilmil was also autistic.

"We chose this movie because here a lot of dialogues are in sign language and that will be easier for these children to understand," said president of Rotary Club of Dhanbad Ravipreet Singh Saluja.

Later, Rotarian Rupesh Bansal served a special lunch menu for the children. They enjoyed puri, fried rice, matar paneer, dal makhni, sweets and, of course, ice-cream.

Autism is a complex neurological disorder.

"Sustained special education programme and behaviour therapy in early stages of life can help a child take care of himself/herself," said principal of Jeevan Jyoti School Aparna Das, adding that such symptoms were found in one out of 1,000 children.

"We organised the programme to generate awareness among parents of such special children," she added.