The big difference from previous years and winners is that the words have gotten tougher and more obscure, even as the national exposure has gotten greater with extensive TV and online coverage.
WASHINGTON: Indian-American kids extended their stranglehold on the US National Spelling Bee championship for the sixth year in succession, winning their 11th title in the last 15 years sparking off renewed debate on whether it is a result of preternatural disposition or parental obsession.
New York City teenager Arvind Mahankali, 13, won the title by correctly spelling 'knaidel', a German-Yiddish word for dough. It was one of the easier words he cracked on an evening when he battled through obscure words such as glossophagine, chalumeau, and dehnstufe, among others.
That an Indian-American kid would win the nationally televised championship was a foregone conclusion long before the final round. Some 20 per cent of the 281 (from more than a million contestants nationwide) who made the cut to the final in Washington DC were of Indian origin. Seven of them made it to the final ten. After 12 exhausting rounds, the only three remaining the fray were Indian-American boys, the first time in five years the title would not go to girls.
Mahankali, a spelling bee veteran who was placed third last year and ninth in 2011, beat Pranav Sivakumar of Illinois (felled by cyanophycean) and Sriram Hathwar of New York (defeated by ptyalagogue). For his years' long labor, he won $ 30,000 in prizes, a sparkling trophy, various scholarships, and a blaze of television exposure including making the rounds of studios on Friday.
At 13, he announced in an ESPN interview his ''retirement'' from the annual event that entertains kids from 8 to 14.
The win generated what has now become an annual bout of sociological scrutiny on why the Indian-American community has begun to dominate events such as spelling bee, geographic bee, and assorted STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) challenges. The NationalGeographic Bee title was also won last month by an Indian-American lad, Sathwik Karnik of Massachusetts. Eight of the final 10 there were of Indian origin.
Explanations for the Indian dominance range from the community having developed a winning habit and maintaining an ecosystem to sustain the momentum (like Kenyans and Ethiopians with long distance running), to more complex elucidations about Brahminical traditions and predisposition to learning by rote, encouraged by the so-called "tiger moms" and "leonine dads" pushing their kids.
But Srinivas Mahankali, the winner's father, who is originally from Andhra Pradesh, says it is also a part of the immigrant desire to be part of the mainstream. ''They are very eager to show that they have mastered the cornerstone of the culture here — the language,'' he told NPR last year after his son placed third.
Family and community dynamics are also at play. At the Mahankali household, Arvind's verbal jousting is supported by his parents and his nine-year old brother Srinath, who plays his accomplice, helping him with wordy drills even as he himself prepares to step up to the stage. Two of the Indian-American finalists this year were siblings of previous title winners.
There is also a South Asian minor league circuit that acts as a training ground for what has now become a community rite of passage, and preps the contestants for the national stage.
While critics of the event, which generates electric tension in the final stages, suggest one should ''bee-ware'' of the obsession with rote learning, parents have a different take. They say preparing for the event also inculcates discipline and a spirit of inquiry. Learning new words provide an insight into everything from history to culture to science and medicine.
Indeed, this year's spelling bee rules were upgraded to put the kids through a written round where they had to explain the meaning of the words they were asked to spell.
"Even in Sanskrit, actually there is a shloka, or a saying, [that] if you learn something, nobody can take it away from you," says Mahankali.
Proof of the positive fallout may well lie in the career paths of previous winners. Balu Natarajan, the first Indian-American winner in 1985, is a successful physician practicing sports medicine in Chicago. Rageshree Ramachandran, who won the spelling bee title 1988, and was also a finalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent contest, is a gastrointestinal pathologist with an MD and a PhD. Nupur Lala, who triggered the ongoing winning spree in 1999 and featured in a riveting documentary titled Spellbound, is finishing up a master's degree in cancer biology.
Even when they have gone off the beaten track, past winners have done well in whatever they have attempted. Pratyush Buddiga, who won the title in 2002, is a professional poker player who took part in the World Series of Poker last year. The others are younger and finding their way, but they seem to have the confidence to do well in any sphere of life. Mahankali, who could barely suppress a grin in the final rounds as he cracked a series of words of German origin (which had defeated him last year) is a ig fan of Einstein and thinks he might become a physicist.
The big difference from previous years and winners is that the words have gotten tougher and more obscure, even as the national exposure has gotten greater with extensive TV and online coverage. Balu Natarajan's winning word was ''milieu'' and Rageshree won with ''elegiacal.'
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