Once again, it’s taken a desi to raise the bar of achievement in one of the major fields of human endeavor. The winner of the first-ever Worldwide Web Games competition for casual gamers is Kavitha Yalavarthi of Odessa, Texas. She wins a prize of one million dollars! The dude standing next to her in the photo is her fiancé, who probably isn’t too unhappy with this development.
“Casual games?” you ask. Well, I had to look it up too. It turns out that this is a term of art in the business:
The term casual game is used to refer to a category of electronic or computer games targeted at a mass audience. Casual games usually have a few simple rules and an engaging game design, making it easy for a new player to begin playing the game in just minutes. They require no long-term time commitment or special skills to play, and there are comparatively low production and distribution costs for the producer.
The three Casual Games at which Kavitha outlasted the competition, narrowly defeating non-desi Amy Demerath of Green Bay, Wisconsin — geek girls from football towns, in a way it all makes sense — were Zuma, Bejeweled 2, and Solitaire.
Solitaire.
That’s right. All those hours you spent delaying the start of a research paper, or doodling at the computer during an incredibly boring conference call, could have netted you one million clams, had only you practised with Kavitha’s intensity. She didn’t even let her honors studies at UT-Austin get in the way of refining her game. And because this is a desi story, after all, her parents helped push her to achieve:
Yalavarthi, an aspiring law student and honors graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, got her start playing casual games by challenging her mother to friendly competitions online. She plans to use her winnings to purchase her first home with her new fiance, who accompanied her to the competition.
Shortly after winning the million-dollar prize, Yalavarthi woke her parents with a late-night call to break the news. “Mom, Dad, you know those casual games that I play online?” Yalavarthi asked. “Well, they’re not so casual anymore. I just won the $1 million grand prize.”
Kavitha’s victory will be shown on the Game Show Network on December 6th. No story yet in the Times of India, but just you wait…
Kavitha is the new brown hope.
She gives me hope that you can be in your 20s, spend endless hours in front of the computer, and still manage to find a guy to marry her. AND win a million dollars doing it.
I, too, take inspiration from Kavitha. Honestly, I tried my best as a Warcraft druid to do my fellow people brown proud but I was wtfpwned by some noob paladin. WTF?? I’ll do better tonight.
i think it is a dastardly plot to humiliate and subjugate da peeple. notice the monkey on the cheque. it is vearing a crown a la hanuman. rise up ye macaques.
I read SM during conference calls and instead of doing papers. sigh I haven’t been doing very well.
Good god, he’s right.
I am so jealous of her. I used to play Zuma nonstop – it was like an addiction. And I swear it’s one of the most stupid games out there, but even after passing the game, I couldn’t stop. Hubby always said I should enter some sort of tournament and put my skills to use. If only I knew it actually existed and I hadn’t just laughed at him!
This chickie can throw herself a nice little wedding with that prize.
this is a FANTASTIC achievement…too bad tetris wasn’t involved ;)…. i mean for her to kick arse like that in a ‘nonacademic’ spelling bee or science olympiad gives me hope that brownies or um..macaca’s will branch out to new endeavors..and possibly even winter sports so India can have a showing besides the measly 2-3 which competed recently…
what would be fun would to watch her with fatal1ty head to head in solitaire ;)…
It’s a frog, geniuses.
Oh.
You guys havent playes zuma….. thats the frog which spits the balls…….
played
Like… OMG… REALLY!! 🙂
Frog, macaca, whatever…I don’t give a shit! I think she’s hot (she loves video games and she has a net worth considerably greater than my own, which fulfills my two strict criteria). I wonder how engaged she is? Because, you know…she can do better than that dude, especially if he has a desi accent.
Ladies, take heed. Amend your biodata immediately to include the following: “enjoys long walks on the beach…and ALSO…casual gaming (i.e. video carom, kabuddi.com, and e-cricket).” Watch those offers of matrimony roll in!
what the F&*K!! a million dollars for solitaire and Zuma. Who sponsored this event? I am dumfounded that a first time event has such a high prize money. even a gold medal winner in Olympics does not get that much money. Is it just me who thinks that this is crazy.
After all the damage to the reputation that Kaavya inflicted on all the fragrant and perfect American Desis, Kavitha has shown that you guys are the greatest in the world. I thought you would never recover, no matter how much spin people called Wadhwa put on things, but this has proven once again that you are all superb.
aww mr. red snapper:
have faith in macacas… we always come back.. with a vengeance at that 😉
Haha, I’m not sure whether I should be proud that “we” came back from the ruins of Kaavya or be ashamed that it took online games featuring frogs and jewels to bring “us” back. I guess I’ll take it.
Even this lady Kavitha, just look at her smile. It’s huge. No British Desi can smile like that. Click on the link to see the larger picture. It just screams perfection, achievment, it’s a model smile. Can you imagine any other racial or immigrant group anywhere winning a million for clicking their mouse over a few cards? Even your stupid ass competition winners earn more than every other minority! And she’s marrying an Indian guy too! No sell out! Woo hoo! You guys are the best. I’m coming to America. I have cousins in Long Island. Let me in. I want a bit of what makes a smile and grin like Kavitha’s!
I mean, come on. Is this an Indo-America smile or what? Law abiding, high achieving, what an example. Now all those kids who want to rebel and break free of their parents by refusing to enter spelling bees, can aim for this instead.
I have to ask why my Long Island cousins never do anything good like this. But then one of them got busted with some spliff once, and had to do community service, and this was before Harold and Kumar came out. So they’re probably lesser models of the model minority scene.
One more time, what a smile.
She gives me hope that you can be in your 20s, spend endless hours in front of the computer, and still manage to find a guy to marry her. AND win a million dollars doing it.
this should read…
She gives me hope that you can be in your 20s, spend endless hours in front of the computer, win a million dollars AND THEN find a guy to marry her
🙂
lucky guy!
they need to redo Friday Night Lights and put this chick in there. kavitha is the new booby miles!
add another desi who makes us proud.
MUMBAI, India (AP) — Beauty queen turned Bollywood actress, Sushmita Sen, doesn’t just dazzle audiences, she charms snakes too.
When a snake slithered onto a movie set scaring crew members, Sen didn’t flinch — instead she bowed before it and chanted Hindu hymns to calm the reptile.
Filmmaker Tanuja Chandra told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that as they spotted the snake, which lay coiled at the edge of a dance floor of a pub they were using as a set, Sen told everyone not to disturb it and it would leave.
“As she went closer, the snake hissed. We all moved back, but Sushmita went down on her knees and closed her eyes,” said Chandra. “She bowed before the snake and chanted some mantras.”
Chandra said the unit members were surprised when “the snake didn’t move from that place for a few hours. Later it left quietly.”
Sen, who plays a rock star in the movie “Zindagi Rocks,” or “Life Rocks,” said she wasn’t afraid.
“The snake is considered very auspicious so I asked everyone not to get scared of Nag Devta (snake god),” she told the paper. “I assured Tanuja that with the blessings of Nag Devta the film is bound to rock.”
Many Indians pray to snakes.
Sen won the Miss Universe title in 1994 and has acted in more than 25 movies in Bollywood, India’s popular movie industry. Howver, her latest film “Chingari” (Ember), in which she played a prostitute, did poorly at the box office.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
They frikin’ had this story on CNN! Of all the things they could have reported..this lame ass story is what gets CNN attention! 😕
It doesn’t add up.
Human speech frequency :500-2500 Hz Snake hearing range: 200-300 Hz
It seems that is the typical intellgible speech range. So it may well add up. My apologies. Didn’t check my references :(.
These days, many snakes can lip-read.
Awww, Red Snapper, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, no one has the power to extend and detail an anecdote as well as you do. In fact, if they ever invent a Global Anecdote Extension Supreme Procrastination Award, I’m sure that the big giant cheque and flashing lights and all eyes would be on you 🙂 Then you wouldn’t have to leave wherever it is you are and go to Long Island…
Go Ms K on her win though! I love it when Hot Girl Geeks take over the world 🙂 Mwahahahahaha
You know the reason I dont feel comfortable around desi’s? It’s because they know things like this
“It doesn’t add up.
Human speech frequency :500-2500 Hz Snake hearing range: 200-300 Hz”
If it’s not too late to chime in. Go Horns!
Wow, that was spectacularly lame. She prayed to the snake. Awesome. And also, by the way, reinforced CNN’s “mythology of the weirdo Indian,” and probably set a new paradigm for behavior for desis confronted with snakes: stop, drop, and pray.
I wonder if Jon Stewart will get hold of this?
Obvious subtitle:
“Snakes on a Set!”
yep!
Yeah!! Nice to see nice Indian Longhorn be successful. She is hot hot hot. Lucky guy.