Just One Letter Made the Difference in Exciting Spelling Bee

By Jawahar Malhotra
HOUSTON: “Usually I am very concerned when events run over and get late,” said Vipin Kumar at the mic just before the start of the Spelling Bee finals , “but in this case I was really happy to see them carrying on.” He was referring to the qualifying rounds of the first ever India House Spelling Bee held at the facility this past Saturday, May 31 in which 30 kids from the ages of 7 to 14 took part in the contest. “They were so good,” he added, “that they exhausted the list of 60 words that the judges had prepared!”

The kids had been at it since early morning, each responding to the words that were thrown out at them by the two judges, Ruby Kenneth and Joseph Elkhadem in the upstairs rooms as another event concerning older, high school; kids took place in the main hall downstairs (see YLDP story on page 15). Dr. V.K. Mathur, a Trustee of India House served as the monitor and arbitrator in case of disputes over the judging. The kids were broken down into two categories by age brackets; under 10 and 10 to 14 and from the 30, it was narrowed down to four kids in each grouping for the finals.

Kumar is the General Manager of India House and is usually omnipresent managing the facility and making sure it runs smoothly during events, but this time he was actually the emcee for this first initiative by India House to reach out to the younger demographic. He explained the rules of engagement to the kids and the just over 50 people who attended, mostly parents and friends. Mathur added that the Bee was an inspiration to him as he was delighted to see how well so many young kids had prepared and competed.
Before the finals started, five young girls from the Natraj School of Dance came onstage for a short dance performance to a Bollywood song, while Kusum Sharma, the Executive Director looked on. “It was quickly put together,” she explained, “as we were just recently asked to participate.” Later, a group of three teenage girls sang an English pop song between the two elimination rounds. After the event, snacks by Udipi Café were served in the lobby.

In the first round, each contestant would be given two words to spell; in the final round between two contestants, each would be given one word to spell, if the answer was incorrect, the other contestant would have to spell it correctly and another follow-up word too in order to win. All the finalists were given medals and the winners won $500, the runners up $250 and the four remaining finalists $100 each. The event was co-sponsored by India House and Malla Mekala, the President of the IT firm Infodat, who was on hand to show his appreciation for the competition and the contestants.

In the elimination round of the first category, Kareena Kamal, 8, a Quail Valley Elementary Spelling Bee Winner in January 2014; Neil Nimmagadda, 9, of Sienna Crossing Elementary; Neal Maddali, 9, of River Oaks Elementary and Shweta Nanaware, 9, of Kilpatrick Elementary competed and after the first round Kareena and Neil moved to the finals. In the second category, Rajyk Bhala, 10, of the Colony Meadows School; Nandika Mansingka, 13, of the Harmony Science Academy West Houston; Tanya Roysam, 11, of Friendswood Junior High and Kalyanee Nanaware, 13, of Woodcreek Junior High competed, with Rajyk and Nandika moving forward after the second round.

In the finals, it seemed that Neil was about to be eliminated with his incorrect spelling of “retribution”, but Kareena came back with an incorrect spelling of “reluctant”, which set the stage for Neil to get it correct and then follow up with correctly getting “ambivalence”.
In the second category which most expected to take longer, Rajyk lost out on “derogatory” which Nandika spelt correctly, followed up with “impious”. While Rajyk immediately air-wrote the word quickly on his upturned forearm and hand and then hastened to spell it out, in each attempt, Nandika always asked for the definition, pronunciation and how it was used in a sentence and repeated the word, asking “Am I saying it correctly?” Undoubtedly, her experience and strategy in handling the words helped her win her competition.