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WASHINGTON: They are not alpha-nerds steeped only in words, their parents do not lock them up and starve them till they have learned the whole dictionary by rote, and they don't bandy words such as rescissible and faineancy in everyday conversation.
In fact, outside of the few days when they are absorbed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship that got underway here on Wednesday, they are all-rounders who perform jazz, dance, watch movies, climb mountains, play sports and do everything regular kids do - and usually they do it better.
The impression that young wordmeisters are obsessed in little else other than learning obscure words by rote to win the national spelling bee crown (usually claimed by an Indian kid) gained currency through a suspenseful 2002 documentary called Spellbound. The NRI family of one of the eight characters the film chronicles is so consumed with winning that they hire special tutors to coach him and conduct special pujas in India for his success - in vain.
But Nupur Lala, who won the Bee title the year the documentary trailed eight participants is today a cancer researcher in Houston, on track after her childhood ambition to go medical school. An accomplished violinist, she joked in a 2013 AP interview that the Bee competition can actually be distracting for a career because "there are so many interesting things in the dictionary to study." At the same time it also focuses the mind, she said, remembering how she had an edge over other competitors when she took the GRE because she had studied the vocabulary component for the Spelling Bee.
On Thursday, as it became highly likely that an Indian-origin kid might win the title for the eighth year in succession (25 of 49 finalists remaining at the time of writing are Indian-Americans; "Desi" kids have won the title 12 of the last 15 years), past winners were dredged out to check what they have been doing and why kids of Indian extract seem so proficient in spelling.
"I was certainly not locked in a room. I participated in other activities and played sports and there was a balanced lifestyle growing up," Balu Natarajan, the first Indian-American winner going back to 1985 told a local TV station in Chicago, where is a successful sports medicine practitioner. Competing in Spelling Bee, he said, taught him the importance of family (his backed him in everything he did) and the importance of perseverance, because he failed to win in his first two attempts before nailing the title at the third shot.
"The attention to detail that comes with stress on spelling...that serves me in everything I do including being a physician," Natarajan said.
According to Natarajan, the reason why the Spelling Bee is so overwhelming today is because of the overwhelming coverage. Not only are the finals broadcast live on ESPN, but most of the kids are sponsored by local newspapers across the United States, which give extensive coverage to their local heroes, particularly if they win.
But with success has also come envy and resentment. Racist trolls derided Indian-American winners last year with one baiter suggesting that participation be restricted to Americans. The attacks have worried the organizers so much that they addressed the issue at a briefing ahead of the competition this week, with Indian-Americans kids already dominating the field.
"I look forward to the day, as do I think many of our South Asian participants, when they are called what they want to be called - Americans," bee director Paige Kimble, the 1981 champion, said Wednesday. "The bee is one of the truest forms of meritocracy, and we support every kid no matter where they come from."
Spelling Bee: Indian-American kids dominate again; 25 of them in final 49 - The Times of India
In fact, outside of the few days when they are absorbed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship that got underway here on Wednesday, they are all-rounders who perform jazz, dance, watch movies, climb mountains, play sports and do everything regular kids do - and usually they do it better.
The impression that young wordmeisters are obsessed in little else other than learning obscure words by rote to win the national spelling bee crown (usually claimed by an Indian kid) gained currency through a suspenseful 2002 documentary called Spellbound. The NRI family of one of the eight characters the film chronicles is so consumed with winning that they hire special tutors to coach him and conduct special pujas in India for his success - in vain.
But Nupur Lala, who won the Bee title the year the documentary trailed eight participants is today a cancer researcher in Houston, on track after her childhood ambition to go medical school. An accomplished violinist, she joked in a 2013 AP interview that the Bee competition can actually be distracting for a career because "there are so many interesting things in the dictionary to study." At the same time it also focuses the mind, she said, remembering how she had an edge over other competitors when she took the GRE because she had studied the vocabulary component for the Spelling Bee.
On Thursday, as it became highly likely that an Indian-origin kid might win the title for the eighth year in succession (25 of 49 finalists remaining at the time of writing are Indian-Americans; "Desi" kids have won the title 12 of the last 15 years), past winners were dredged out to check what they have been doing and why kids of Indian extract seem so proficient in spelling.
"I was certainly not locked in a room. I participated in other activities and played sports and there was a balanced lifestyle growing up," Balu Natarajan, the first Indian-American winner going back to 1985 told a local TV station in Chicago, where is a successful sports medicine practitioner. Competing in Spelling Bee, he said, taught him the importance of family (his backed him in everything he did) and the importance of perseverance, because he failed to win in his first two attempts before nailing the title at the third shot.
"The attention to detail that comes with stress on spelling...that serves me in everything I do including being a physician," Natarajan said.
According to Natarajan, the reason why the Spelling Bee is so overwhelming today is because of the overwhelming coverage. Not only are the finals broadcast live on ESPN, but most of the kids are sponsored by local newspapers across the United States, which give extensive coverage to their local heroes, particularly if they win.
But with success has also come envy and resentment. Racist trolls derided Indian-American winners last year with one baiter suggesting that participation be restricted to Americans. The attacks have worried the organizers so much that they addressed the issue at a briefing ahead of the competition this week, with Indian-Americans kids already dominating the field.
"I look forward to the day, as do I think many of our South Asian participants, when they are called what they want to be called - Americans," bee director Paige Kimble, the 1981 champion, said Wednesday. "The bee is one of the truest forms of meritocracy, and we support every kid no matter where they come from."
Spelling Bee: Indian-American kids dominate again; 25 of them in final 49 - The Times of India
....Wonder why you are cheering? 
