Somehow this article made me feel disapointed in myself. Like I'm not living up the ABCD dream like I'm supposed to. And I'm starting med school in August.=/

I don't think of myself as hyper-competitive. Did anyone else have the same reaction?

What about the hometown boy, Shantanu Srivatsa from North Dakota?

He was one among the 17 other desis that didn't make it to the top 41.

are you serious? we should be proud of this?

good job at rote memorization indians, im so incredibly proud of you

i hope the patel dude wins

Damn! I missed this one. Do they have a contest in the 25-30 year category i could go win?

According to this story, Kavya is not alone among the contestants in wanting to be a neurosurgeon. I wonder if they also look up to CNN's Sanjay Gupta in addition to the previous spelling bee winners. :)

Vaibhav S Vavilala sounds like a 4 Vheel drive.

"good job at rote memorization indians"

Hardly - instead, the students, not just Indians, have to learn the spelling rules of different language systems - Greek, Latin, German, French, etc. - and then apply those rules to the words. Simply memorizing a dictionary is not enough.

BTW - there was an episode of The King of Queens, when Deacon enters the room and asks Doug what he's watching, he replies with excitement, "The Spelling Bee. There is an Indian kid with a lisp who's kicking ass!"

There's only room for one Double V, kid! [attempts to look menacing]

Will they be checked for performance enhancing drugs ?

It's the curry.

And Kavya is given the word "Kurta" to spell. Thankfully she got it.

Kavya "The Destroyer" Shivashankar got the word "kurta" in Rd 5. Thank God she got it correct or else we'd be forced to stone her.

There's no such thing as correct transliteration!

Dude, this makes me so unbelievably happy.

They just announced the 11 finalists -- 7 of which are brown. Expect a sweep this year.

Expect a sweep this year.

That's premature.

I am kind of embarressed(spelling) that so many Indians are in this thing.

7 out of the final 11? 7-11? They are fuc#ing with us.

If you go espn.com you can see a video of a lady laughing while she calls one Indian kid "That kid with the mustache"

It is hilarious. Another contest that Indians would dominate....

Giving the best mustache rides.

Maybe the disproportionate number of Indians has something to do with some of their ancestors having to memorize copious volumes of Sanskrit text for a few thousand years?
I am not an evolutionary biologist, but it must confer some advantage, no?

IF you read their profiles, they are all sterotypes.. doing the same stuffs like plays piano, violin, math competition etc...don't desi's have anything else fun to do in life?

UFC this is not. Another case of where even if you win, you still lose.

IF you read their profiles, they are all sterotypes.. doing the same stuffs like plays piano, violin, math competition etc...don't desi's have anything else fun to do in life?

Maybe the disproportionate number of Indians has something to do with some of their ancestors having to memorize copious volumes of Sanskrit text for a few thousand years?

LOL!

I am not an evolutionary biologist, but it must confer some advantage, no?

Maybe the disproportionate number of Indians has something to do with some of their ancestors having to memorize copious volumes of Sanskrit text for a few thousand years?

Manpreet - that is very kaavya-ish of you ;)

Sulabh - That is where I got it from :)

#20: Maybe the disproportionate number of Indians has something to do with some of their ancestors having to memorize copious volumes of Sanskrit text for a few thousand years? I am not an evolutionary biologist, but it must confer some advantage, no?

There was a time in history when all cultures kept their classics and religious texts by human memory. Just like now all cultures keep their texts electronically.

IF you read their profiles, they are all sterotypes.. doing the same stuffs like plays piano, violin, math competition etc...don't desi's have anything else fun to do in life?

Tennis, bharatanatyam and speech and debate. I was in high school almost 20 years ago and nothing has changed.

7 out of 11? You wouldn't know that from ABC's opening sequence.

Watching this now - some of these kids are so scared and nervous !
#170 was pretty exuberant though. And it's on ABC....as in ABCD ?
I know, very bad - but the 7-11 thing is pretty ridiculous.

Wonder if any kids pass out this time. The first names are pretty interesting though,
they all seem unique. Half of the 7 are South Indian too I believe. I wonder if the
parents all went out for a big Indian dinner before.

Seems to be turning into a great place for the parents to be finding potential marriage
candidates for their kids !! "Oooh - look at that Vikram boy, he and Neelam both enunciate
so well - their children would have no problem with massively multi-syllabic words".

apodytrerium - is the word that got siddarth chand bounced from the bee, and bought tears to his eyes.

Liveblogging not working on the other post. Couldn't post there either.

Maybe they should have the non-brown kids try and spell the full names of the Indian kids.

Anyone notice that one of the white girls had a longer name than the Indians ? Found that funny.

Still think some marriages will get hashed out backstage :)

Is it just me, or is ABC trying to screw this up on purpose? The constant yakking, interviewing Dancing with Stars winners, and as many commercials you can fit. How do you take an exciting straightforward competition - and over-produced it to the extent ABC has?

They should have someone like Jesse Ventura or Mean Gene Okerlund do the announcing.

It is very amusing to hear narration during a very academic process, like chess.

But it's TV - they probably had to find more than normal advertisers for a program like this.

Enough with the food words. I'm hungry!

Kavya wins it !! Good picks Abhi.

Anyone have any money on her ?
Would have been great if she co-won with her friend Aishwarya.

kavya won! yay! fourth's time's a charm! :)

as soon as she heard the word, she smiled just so slightly, and i exhaled.
YeA KaVYa!!

And not even an interview with Kavya, so they can air a Gray's Anatomy rerun? I never thought I would hate TV. The kids were fine, but once again, adults messed it up.

Kavya, shmavya. What about her kid sister? She was awesome.

NERDS!!!!!

NERDS!!!!!

Self-deprecate much?

And not even an interview with Kavya, so they can air a Gray's Anatomy rerun?

This would not have happened if that home-school-white-kid had won. This girl's success is so awesome, she 'knew' the last word and had tears in her eyes even before she started spelling it. Way better TV than a re-run.

This was her 3rd or 4th appearance - kudos to her.

K - A - V - Y - A this is how you spell tenacious.

Considering that Razib is a hardcore analytics and statistics geek, I am sure he was being sarcastic.

Although, most of the Indian parents did look like engineers. Would have been cool to see a biker dad.

Big congrats to Kavya though - can't be easy with the kids behind you, parents on stage, and millions watching.

I agree with the interview comment - they were interviewing gymnastics winners, and other kids who lost,
yet couldn't spare a minute for the winner ? Next time, let's have PBS have a crack at it.

Simple recipe to make winners. Blinker the kids and you shall have it. These kids are pretty sharp and go on to have interesting careers. As for the neurosurgeon bit, what do you think they'd aspire for instead? Investment banking? Corporate management? Obviously they don't simply memorise the spellings, they work with some rules related to etymology, pronunciation etc., It's pretty clear that these kids don't get to see much daylight, excepting for these outings! And BTW did you see the 2nd Lady of the US, Dr. Jill Biden in the audience? Wow, she always reminds me of every woman I have known, who does her best managing multiple roles. She always looks like she's just ad enough time to finish making the dinner, cleaning up, setting out the table, before a dash to her wardrobe, and then out at the event - not to forget remembering to take a pacifier to pop into her husband's mouth before he can gab away! Wonder what the VP will say this time, "You can't step into a Dunkin Donuts in Delaware without being called out on your spelling!" or some such thing! I absolutely enjoyed his earlier remark about the Indian accent in Delaware!

Next time, let's have PBS have a crack at it.

It used to be carried on ESPN, which did a good job with it. Execs at Disney then moved it to ABC, thinking it would get a bigger audience, which it did for the previous 2 years. And those previous ABC airings were fine - but this year was just a mess.

So - considering the Slumdog effect some have experienced - will this add to the 'positive minority'
stereotype that Eastern and Southern Asians experience ?

Will we now have co-workers and strangers asking us for help with their crossword puzzles or
to embiggen their emails with big words to help make them more cromulent ?

Some of the kids seemed well rounded personality wise. Still can't get over the moustaches -
even Aishwarya's dad grew one for the occasion (was missing from their video clip).

The interview thing is troubling the more I think about it - that many brown kids and no
follow up time during or after with them. Worse than Seacrest with the Slumdog kids at the Oscars.

I honestly wonder if some of the Spelling Bee execs or ABC execs will honestly have meetings or
discussions on how to get more non-brown kids into the next one.

I honestly wonder if some of the Spelling Bee execs or ABC execs will honestly have meetings or discussions on how to get more non-brown kids into the next one.

They might put an essay contest before the spelling rounds. Make it more subjective. I am pretty sure they are thinking about it. Putting 6-7 brown kids out of a group of 11 on TV during primetime TV would not work.

Like some one said this contest should go back to PBS.

kansas NERD in the hiz house!

* Dancing With the Stars is over. Was that Shawn Johnson interview really necessary? If we needed to see an Olympic sweetheart, I would have preferred an ice skater, for the inevitable "how do you spell triple salchow?" jokes if nothing else.

* It's a question every viewer of the Bee asks every year, and I still don't know the answer. A misspelled word is obvious to TV viewers at home, and it's gotta be just as obvious to the judges. Why can't they ding the heck out of their little bells as soon as the ugly mistakes are completed. Why insert that massive, horrifying pause, during which every viewer already knows the awful truth, with the contestants forced to wait a mini-eternity for their dreams to be punctured by ringing?

"Ding!" shouted out the bubbly Neetu Chandak, eliminating herself as soon as she finished "derriengue." Those immediate dings should be a lesson for the organizers.

* I was pleased to learn that the winner would receive Encyclopedia products. I've heard the young generation is really into large, bound reference books, there being few other options for quickly answering research-type questions nowadays.

* Why should sports fans love this event? It lurches toward the best of March Madness as few other events can. There are favorites, who are most often there at the end, like Shivashankar tonight. But there are upsets, too: last year's runner-up, Sidharth Chand, was felled in Round 8, ahead of several lesser-known contestants. There's the kind of diversity that can draw in the entire country; the final seven hailed from both coasts and the country's innards, were male and female, white and black.

There are faces you've seen countless times--Kavya's little sister has gotten as much exposure as Tyler Hansbrough--mixed with unknowns who bubble up unannounced, like Ruiter this year, carrying a touch of George Mason in from Fairfax.

And most of all, it's sudden death in a way few things are. Best-of-seven series are great, but it's hard to get too worked up over the first quarter of the first game of one of those NBA fortnights. But if you stepped away for just a second tonight, you could have missed Chand get KO's by apodyterium. That's drama. That's why we watch.

Well, that and betting pools.

Kavya Shivashankar Wins, D.C. Waits

I picked two of the final three. I am quitting my job and heading to Vegas next year. :)

This would not have happened if that home-school-white-kid had won

The interview thing is troubling the more I think about it - that many brown kids and no follow up time during or after with them. Worse than Seacrest with the Slumdog kids at the Oscars.

I honestly wonder if some of the Spelling Bee execs or ABC execs will honestly have meetings or
discussions on how to get more non-brown kids into the next one.

Very important points. I'm surprised ABC even allowed brown kids onto the program. I think they should be picketed for their sickening discriminatory practices.

You know what really upset me? I was Instant Messaging someone about this, and she defended ABC. WTF??? She said that the reason ABC did that was because the broadcast ran way over time. She also alleged that last year's winner was also a desi and they did interview him on the show. I called her a racist and blocked her forever.

scrippsbee was tweeting the bee and has pics from right after the win.

This blog had heavy duty coverage of the spelling bee. Check it out.

And not even an interview with Kavya, so they can air a Gray's Anatomy rerun? I never thought I would hate TV. The kids were fine, but once again, adults messed it up.

Couldn't agree with you more. I was really disappointed that they didn't interview her. My favorite part of any sports final is the celebration (especially if I was rooting for the winner).

Are they being racist or are they just concerned about their bottom line? Maybe nerdy desi kids are really not that interesting for american audiences. I've noticed that Shawn Johnson gets much more air time than the other girl who won the olympic gold medal. Shawn's cuter. More air-time worthy. Perhaps it's the same dynamic at work and has nothing to do with racism?

I'm very proud of all this! They're all studs in my eyes. Now, I hope that the Indians win all the Geography Bees soon. Indians in the house!!! I'd say that the bulk of these kids - the supermajority, in fact - are South Indians.

I'd say that the bulk of these kids - the supermajority, in fact - are South Indians.

do a headcount. you can tell my name, and if not, by reading their bios, right? (one of the girls listed 'tamil language' as something she wuz interested in) south indians are probably 25% of america's indian population, max.

and i tried doing that once, but i'm not good with brown names and stuff. i

Congrats to Kavya and others..Hope some of these spelling bee whiz kids make a career in "computational linguistics"

couldn't help it. the winner has a surname that seems common among kannada speakers....

hahahaha @ "good job at rote memorization indians"

Dad Shivshankar's name is Mirle - what kind of name is that? Is that a weird spelling for Murali?

#64:Dad Shivshankar's name is Mirle - what kind of name is that? Is that a weird spelling for Murali?

Mother's name Sandy? Not desi enough! (sarcasm)

I'd say that the bulk of these kids - the supermajority, in fact - are South Indians.

I was looking at the list of all the desi kids who have been in the finals of the National Spelling Bee the last several years and I don't think I saw anybody from the part of India where my parents come from. My level of ethnic pride is lower then usual due to this fact.

do a headcount. you can tell my name,

These days all the girls are Kaavya and all the boys are Rahul. In fact, if I meet a random Indian-American kid, that's what I'm going to call them because the odds are I will be right --it'll save me from learning a new name.
But neither Kaavya nor Rahul are traditional South Indian names (i.e from the last 150 years or so). I first heard the name Kaavya in the US. It is really an Indian-American name.

I first heard the name Kaavya in the US. It is really an Indian-American name.

I'm guessing you're not malayalee. :)

Rahul are traditional South Indian names

Hmmmm....may be Gautam Buddh named his son after a Lemurian - who knows.

And not even an interview with Kavya, so they can air a Gray's Anatomy rerun?
This would not have happened if that home-school-white-kid had won.

maybe, maybe not. Spelling bees are an old American passtime, pre-dating baseball, so we could probably research the historical data on the amount of publicity accorded the spelling bee winners in pre-desi America. Nowadays, Indians winning spelling contests is a sort of 'dog bites man story.' If the winner had been an American black kid, they probably would have made the cover of Time magazine.

I was looking at the list of all the desi kids who have been in the finals of the National Spelling Bee the last several years and I don't think I saw anybody from the part of India where my parents come from. My level of ethnic pride is lower then usual due to this fact.

He, he Suki. You have to take the good with the bad. We don't know exactly why Indians win spelling bees but it probably has to do with culture and not genes (unlike winning marathons which is due more to biological and geographical reasons). South indians generally are more conservative than north indians, which by indian standards means much less individualistic and self-sacrficing towards the family. Kavya's grandchildren will be All American and will probably flunk the spelling bee. Not because they're dumb but more due to cultural reasons.

#64:Dad Shivshankar's name is Mirle - what kind of name is that? Is that a weird spelling for Murali?

Mother's name Sandy? Not desi enough! (sarcasm)

Saendya= Sandhya, (I googled that--it must be hard living there in Kansas).
Mirle might be Murali.

They might be Tamil, definitely South Indian though.

Ms. Kaayva is in all likelihood a Tamil Iyer (brahmin)

i think she's from the Palakkad Iyers.

Sorry mallus,iyers etc. Kavya's folks are kannadigas, gowdas to boot. (vokkaligas) no relation to devegowda
Mirle is the name of the village Kavyas dad's side comes from. I know their family

so does this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaud_Saraswat_Brahmin link map onto her ancestry?

Mirle is the name of the village Kavyas dad's side comes from. I know their family

Interesting... Does it rhyme with the word for cockroach?

How is it that Kavya is fluent in Tamil and not Kannada? Maybe Sandhya is Tamil?

21 · desi on May 28, 2009 04:18 PM · Direct link

IF you read their profiles, they are all sterotypes.. doing the same stuffs like plays piano, violin, math competition etc...don't desi's have anything else fun to do in life?

Even though I cringe at their nerdiness, and I've posted something along these lines with that "kid-genius" who knows all the state capitals and days/dates, I must say that math competition and piano is far more value-added and civilization-building than cultivating basketball skills. Civilizations are built on brainiacs who create software, architecture, civil engineering, and even literature. But it's not based on someone's athletic abilities.

We can name far more prodigies of the Roman Empire and Renaissance Rome than we do their athletes/non-classical musicians.

78 · boston_mahesh on May 30, 2009 12:18 AM · Direct link
21 · desi on May 28, 2009 04:18 PM · Direct link
IF you read their profiles, they are all sterotypes.. doing the same stuffs like plays piano, violin, math competition etc...don't desi's have anything else fun to do in life?

BOSTON_MAHESH
The formatting wasn't correct in my original post above. This is how it should have read:

Even though I cringe at their nerdiness, and I've posted something along these lines with that "kid-genius" who knows all the state capitals and days/dates, I must say that math competition and piano is far more value-added and civilization-building than cultivating basketball skills. Civilizations are built on brainiacs who create software, architecture, civil engineering, and even literature. But it's not based on someone's athletic abilities.

We can name far more prodigies of the Roman Empire and Renaissance Rome than we do their athletes/non-classical musicians.

We can name far more prodigies of the Roman Empire and Renaissance Rome than we do their athletes/non-classical musicians.

We just live in an age where being really good at cracking skulls isn't considered to be a valuable skill anymore.

Maybe we should legalize dueling?

Actually, we still remember Johnny Unitas too. So there is still immortality to be had in sports. You just have to be really good. Arthur Ashe, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and so on.

It's not so much about what you're excellent at, it's about being excellent at something.

thanks for posting this, abhi. i missed all the excitement, although my mother did call me up on thursday to tell me all the female finalists were indian, so i was glad to find more detail at Sepia. re minimizing the brown presence - seems pretty illogical in a competition like this one - if you're choosing the contestants by race (or tv viability),then seems like the competition won;t be as tough and would not be as much fun to watch. plus, can;t we get a break - the one thing desis are good at, and we finally made it to national television with it;)

Kavya's grandchildren will be All American and will probably flunk the spelling bee. Not because they're dumb but more due to cultural reasons.

It is really an Indian-American name.

sulabh and manpreet - too funny.

Re: comment 77 , where did u hear abt her Tamil profeciemcy? Her mum is a Gowda too. Last year she gave an interview for Udaya channel and spoke Kannada

She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers

Re: comment 77 , where did u hear abt her Tamil profeciency? Her mum is a Gowda too. Last year Kavya gave an interview for Udaya channel and spoke Kannada quite fluently.

She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers.

It is curious to see a disproportionate amount of S. Indians but note that the Westinghouse/Intel science competition has many N. Indian finalists. You guys just choose not to participate, so the only interesting question is why this particular type of contest is prized by S. Indians and not N. Indians. My hypothesis is that most of these kids are the fruit of the 90s H1 boom which was disproportionatly S. Indian and interest in spelling bees and the value of rote memorization wanes as you become more "Americanized" and begin to value ingenuity and creative problem solving more (hence Intel Talent Search instead of bees)

#82 Gowda gal

where did u hear abt her Tamil profeciemcy?

I confused her with Ramya Auroprem, who has a slightly weird last name herself, and is supposedly fluent in Tamil.

She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers

That's good to know.

Re: comment 77 , where did u hear abt her Tamil profeciency? Her mum is a Gowda too. Last year Kavya gave an interview for Udaya channel and spoke Kannada quite fluently. She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers.

Funny how the tamil brahmins, who were so amusingly delirious with "brown pride" at Kavya's victory in rote-learning, have disappeared all of a sudden upon learning that she is not a tambram. So their giddy joy was really a very narrow minded casteist pride at what they imagined was a great achievement (spelling prowess in their master's language) of one of their own subcaste :-)

She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers

what exactly is a gowda? a caste? i think i'm one of them.

No more funny than Gowdas and Bunts insisting that they are poor, uneducated, lacking in power, not responsible for the faults of our society, even if they have always had the majority, thrown up leaders, thrown up good-looking people, and demonstrated academic prowess.

Kavya's victory in rote-learning

She isn't a Brahmin either, we gowdas are poor low caste farmers
what exactly is a gowda? a caste? i think i'm one of them

It's a very louche I-banker full of double entendres or an unpasteurized cheese favored by I-bankers

thrown up good-looking people

thank u

Manju, you're welcome. But, more importantly, what does Bess think?

I wasn't faking it.. Just tounge in cheek. I'm not proud to be a gowda or whatever, I abhor the caste system, hell I even married "out-of-caste" but I do agree with Bunt, *most* Brams jump up and down to claim all south India intel. I don't ever get involved but I know Kavya and was amused by these claims.
Manju: Gowda is actually Vokkaliga, there is VPA in the US which is like FOKANA etc. Trust me you would know if you are one- your mum would make mutton chops or koli saaru on Sundays
Over & out.

Trust me you would know if you are one- your mum would make mutton chops or koli saaru on Sundays

Damn it! My (Tamil) mommy tends to "order out" on Sunday, even if I'm visiting. She claims that she "works" (or something) and likes to relax on the weekends. Now I know why I'm so damn "assimilated."

When I saw Kavya in the Spelling Bee Finals on ABC, along with my family. I commented to my wife this looks like a Kannadiga girl. It so happens she is indeed Kannadiga and to top it she is a Gowda girl too. Kavya certainly made Gowdas all over the world proud.

Also the first runner up Aishwarya Pastapur is also a Kannadiga. First, Aravind Adiga with his Booker prize and then Bhimsen Joshi with Bharath Ratna. Now these Kannada girls showing their smarts in the Spelling Bee at the world stage. Kannadigas are on a role. Go Kannadigas!!

71 · Divya on May 29, 2009 09:52 AM · Direct link

I was looking at the list of all the desi kids who have been in the finals of the National Spelling Bee the last several years and I don't think I saw anybody from the part of India where my parents come from. My level of ethnic pride is lower then usual due to this fact.

He, he Suki. You have to take the good with the bad. We don't know exactly why Indians win spelling bees but it probably has to do with culture and not genes (unlike winning marathons which is due more to biological and geographical reasons). South indians generally are more conservative than north indians, which by indian standards means much less individualistic and self-sacrficing towards the family. Kavya's grandchildren will be All American and will probably flunk the spelling bee. Not because they're dumb but more due to cultural reasons.

Then again, there's guys like M. Night Shyamalan, Jay Chandrasekhar, and Aziz Ansari. So..when South Indians rebel, they really know how to do it.