Loved Amar's piece on ESPN.com. My spelling career also ended at the age of 7. (The word was stodgy.)

Aliya Deri's hobbies include Indian dance.

From his bio:

Anurag is an avid reader and a straight A student. His favorite subject in school is science. Anurag recently participated in state-level Mathcounts and Science Olympiad competitions.

For an interesting retrospective of the lead up to the Spelling Bee see this ESPN article by Amar Shah.

awww, i'm always tickled when one of "my kids" does good...i've known amar since he was one of my interns during the sanity-free summer of 2002. i laughed with delight when he mentioned the fantasy involving natalie portman; i can vouch that he was consumed with her, right down to being able to quote her class schedule at college. ;)

while amar says that he retired "at seven", i'd like to add that he was definitely one of the best spellers in his internship class. modesty is so cute on you, AMARSHAH. :D

Rounds 12 through the final round were a closeout, an all-desi sweep.

Congrats:

1. Anurag Kashyap
2. (tie) Aliya Deri & Samir Patel
3. Rajiv Tarigopula

This victory brought to you by appoggiatura and hodiernal.

These kids are too damn smart. I'm jealous. I tripped on 'vacuum' in a 6th grade spelling bee. A devastating loss; I'm still recovering.

"Colonel" was the word that killed my spelling bee days. Hello! When you say "kernel", i'm going to spell "kernel". I never knew "colonel" existed!

Lackadaisical was the word that ended my spelling bee career and knocked me into second-place at the state spelling bee.

When you say "kernel", i'm going to spell "kernel". I never knew "colonel" existed!

LOL!!!

Looks like everyone out here has seen some action in the battle of the bee.

Looks like everyone out here has seen some action in the battle of the bee.

The more bee action, the less action action ;)

I still can't goddamn sppell.

Actually, I blame the computer or word processor. After I stopped being schooled in India and returned to my homeland, the USA, I was never harassed for spellings like I was in the des.

Coompppuuuterrr did it all for me.

Sonia, it's worse when they pronounce "left-tennant" and you're supposed to know it's lieutenant

This spells trouble for thousands of desi kids across the US. Their parents will be even more overbearing pain in the b... and compare them all the time to Anurag etc.

I am not sure if this is good or bad for desi society. Is there any statistic on how many hours these kids spend with the dictionary and at what age did they start soaking vocabulary

The journie found a way to compare spelling bees to football :)

... the group is also part of a niche demographic that has dominated the event over the past six years... Although representing less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, Indian-Americans made up around 15 percent of last year's participants... Indian-Americans are the New England Patriots of spelling bees, winning four of the last six competitions.

It's now five out of seven.

If / when my kids fulfill their destiny to compete in the spelling bee, I'm gonna make sure they all get decent haircuts first. ;-)

did anyone notice that runner up samir is a student at the "patel achievement academy" in coleyville, tx? bloggers, whats the deal on this!?

... I'm gonna make sure they all get decent haircuts first.

That's the sensitive poet coiff you're dissing.

patel achievement academy

He's homeschooled:

The darlin' Samir Patel, a homeschooler from Texas who attends Patel Achievement Academy, will be in DeeCee for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. The competition will occur tomorrow and Thursday.

Mom is a honey, too: " 'Jyoti has maybe spent 11 hours on herself in the last 11 years,' said Nita Mehta, a Fort Worth family friend who has a son Samir's age. 'She has dedicated her life to Samir.' "

There are 34 home scholars in the 78th annual Bee... My roommates, the jocks, say that a spelling competition is too tedious an event to rate ESPN coverage. And the PBA* finals are exciting, guys? Own it, Samir!

Personally, I say the Vij Super-Duper Day School beats the Patel Achievement Academy any day. (No offense, Apul.)

You ABCDs sure know your ABCs.

It's all a conspiracy to put me out of business! Oh no, Mr. Bill!

Whats the deal with homeschooling? On the outset, looks like a bad idea. Any thoughts?

"Salicylate" was my downfall. I'm still bitter.

I know a few people who were homeschooled who turned into some pretty amazing college students. Most of them had pretty specific situations WHY they were homeschooled: mom was an actual teacher and local public schools were horrid; one girl was a skier on the U.S. junior olympic team and was travelling too much to stay in public school. I think that if the parents can handle it and the kids can handle it, it's not such a bad idea.

But if you're homeschooling your kids for the precise purpose of sheltering them from the world, you are doing them a disservice.

I *love* how they called it "Patel Achievement Academy"! Pretentious? Maybe. Cute? Yeah. :)

Hey, about that ad with the couple with the perfect Genes. I think the comments about it being snooty and self absorbed are misplaced. When I read that ad, I didn't detect any of the things some people mentioned here. I was very impressed and it was very descriptive of who was getting married. Let's face it, it was far more enjoyable to read that ad as opposed to:
Attention! Mr. Bubba and Ms. Welfare are getting hooked up! We saved our crack money just to place this ad!

It is very impressive that 4 out of the last six winners were indians and the final four this year were indians. Let's just avoid the superior Gene mentality and give credit to the hard work that these youngsters put in to accomplish such an achievement.

I'm new to this blog; 24f from NM, living in TN. Mom's from Kerala, dad's from West Bengal.

I missed "suppedaneum" at the NSB in 1993, then molasses at the frickin' state finals in 1994. To this day, I still hold that the judges heard my "e" as an "a" at the NSB...and I've never intentionally eaten molasses since '94. ;)

Wow, that was more than 10 years ago. I need to get over it.

-Sheila

Looks like everyone out here has seen some action in the battle of the bee.

The more bee action, the less action action ;)

*GASP* Are you calling them bee-folks geeks?

The CNN report tells us about how Anurag's performance last year at the competition helped him thus:
That experience "helped me to know what I should study to ... like, win this thing," he said afterward, repeatedly hiding his face behind his cardboard number.

And further when he won:
He covered his face and rushed to hug his father.

Hiding/covering face...hmmmm....was there some face-saving going on there?

I guess we all must be real smart :)

Check out the replays on espn Sportscenter. They captured the intesnity and other funny quirks. That Samir Patel fellow is a real superstar... I hope he wins next year.

Bah! I'll celebrate when we have a quarterback in the NFL.

props to hard work.

Just a reminder to check out "Spellbound" at your local video store.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0334405/

Impressive, but it makes me wonder what the parents put them through to get them to this level. I can't help but think back to when I was ten years old and learned to factor polynomials (something that a lot of high school students can't do) because my father threatened to beat me with a shoe.

We used to have to do polynomials and math warksheets too. I remember finishing the work frantically with a crayon in the bathroom 5 minutes before my parents were due back from work. My penalty when I didn't finish? No sweets/soda/comic books for a week long period. My parents were so systematic that with each time I failed to do my work, the weeks would increase. And when the parents were really frustrated with their blockhead offspring, they'd tap us smartly on our knuckles with the very pencils we wittled down to the eraser. It hurt.
I'm not complaining though, I did fine everywhere I went.
Thanks Mummy and Papa. I now know that life is not all ha ha hee hee.

i watched him on 'Today' this morning... what a cutie... he's a real sweetheart.

he definitely earned this.

No one needs to know about my spelling competition downfall (which involve the word "erotic.") Hmmm...maybe there's a lesson somewhere in there for me ;)

My question is, how long before Anurag is no longer called an Indian-American, but the more expansive and less exlusionary term "South Asian American"?

I've baby-sat some homeschooled kids. For the most part they were sensitive, thoughtful and polite in ways that would have gotten the crap kicked out of them in a public school...but they also found it really difficult to deal with strangers and other kids their own age. *Especially* the good-at-science kids...one them had this horribly condescending manner...he was ten!

I'm not sp happy with this sweeping the the NSB thing. Bad enough to be considered a fuckup if you're not a doctor/engineer/Phd...now I'm gonna feel retarded for not being able to spell zuchini. (zucchini? zuchchini? AARRGGHHhhh!!)

For all of you ex-spelling bee participants, I have this friend who is a psychiatrist (loser profession?). :)

To all you concerned folks - as a parent of a desi-American toddler rest assured there is no pressure on my kid to win the Spelling Bee.

The Geographic Bee is another matter entirely ...

they also found it really difficult to deal with strangers and other kids their own age. *Especially* the good-at-science kids...one them had this horribly condescending manner..

I don't think that's a homeschooled thing...that's a science/tech thing. NOT everyone who is science-y is like that, but a LOT are. There's a theory out there that a lot of tech, geeky-types have Asperger's Syndrome (sort of a mild form of autism.) I don't know much about it, but apparently AS is characterized by poor social skills, and facility/interest with complex ideas.

I used to be a programmer. I worked with a lot of guys who could not make eye contact, or have a conversation, and I'd say at least 50% were condescending. (Maybe this was all exacerbated by my being a girrRRrrl, but I don't know.)

KXB - My question is, how long before Anurag is no longer called an Indian-American, but the more expansive and less exlusionary term "South Asian American"?

Why stop at South Asian American... why not just call him a citizen of the world?

My friend Joydeep has some strong views on this subject -- not necessarily politically correct
http://www.stringinfo.com/pkblog/archives/002412.html

KXB - My question is, how long before Anurag is no longer called an Indian-American, but the more expansive and less exlusionary term "South Asian American"?

I dont really see this as too much of a problem in the US, where the socio-economic performance of ethnic Indian, Pakistanis and other South Asians is fairly comprable.

Might be a much bigger deal in the UK where the gap in the socio-economic (acedemic perfromance, poverty, crime rates etc...) between Indians vs Pakistanis/Bangladeshis is larger than the gap between Blacks and Whites.