You didn’t think I’d just sit on the sidelines while the Greatest Show on Earth was unfolding did you? The Annual Scripps National Spelling bee wraps up in prime-time tonight! Meet the last of the brown hopefuls (who we must all now pray for as they represent the best of desi-dom):
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Name: Kavya Shivashankar Favorite movie: Spellbound Favorite TV show: The View (she reportedly got into it with Rosie when she went on) Abhi’s Scouting Report: She has experience under her belt and stormed into the final rounds last year. Not to mention she plays the violin. A victory by her would also resurrect the name “Kavya” from its current place in infamy. |
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Name: Nithya P. Vijayakumar Interesting fact: Her mother quizzes her on medical words (the Dr. brain-washing starts early) Hobby: Blackbelt in the American Okinawan Karate Academy (I would not want to be the judge that rings the bell on her). Abhi’s Scouting Report: Has to be my favorite. Look at her. She is a Warrior- |
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Name: Prateek Kohli Best Physical Feature: Peach fuzz mustache which distracts the smitten female contestants. Every brown dude can relate. Family: Has mom issues. From his bio: “Prateek believes himself to be the best speller in his family, although his mother claims to have been the best in her school.” Abhi’s Scouting Report: He’s done well so far but if he tries to charm Nithya back-stage she will deck him. |
Okay folks. I am leaving for a quick workout. When I come back I shall live-blog tonight’s contest and explain how this year’s great brown hope failed us all and entertain suggestions for how our community can/should shun him for being weak. You can also take a trip down memory lane to check out last year’s losers
WATCH LIVE ON ABC
8:16 p.m. (EST): A white girl named Zia or Tia or something gets eliminated. The chances of the Indian kids just went up. An Asian dude from Canada is next. Who the hell let the Canadians up in here anyways?
8:19 p.m. Another Asian kid from Canada. What the hell?? Are these guys ringers or what? Canada’s borders are definitely more porous.
8:20 p.m. Canada bites it again. How can this be the “National” Spelling Bee when 3 of the first 6 spellers are Canadian? Can I just say that this is way more fun than the Kentucky Derby?
8:31 p.m. Kavya is up!! They are profiling her. What a sweetheart. Enough to melt an Evil blogger’s heart.
8:32 p.m. Sister. So. She has a sister. The force is strong in this family.
8:35 p.m. They gave her the word “cilice.” A hairy cloth made of goat hair worn close to the skin for painful penance. She just spelled it wrong. Make her wear one for a whole year!!! The little sister Vanya better start prepping now!!
8:44 p.m. Nithya is up. The origin of her freaking word is unknown. They always screw the brown kid.
8:45 p.m. Pelorus is her word. AGHHHHHHHHH!! She is gone. She better be able to break a stack of cinder blocks with her katate black belt because she is done spelling. It’s all up to “Peach Fuzz” now.
8:56 p.m. Prateek gets a word of “unknown” origin also. I call BS! The word is “rigaree.” It isn’t even in the dictionary! He gets it right though. Go brown go.
9:12 p.m. These Canadians are really pissing me off. We are building a wall on the wrong freaking border.
9:24 p.m. Prateek in the hiz-ouse again. His word “randkluft.” Damn Germans and their language. Even though it isn’t in the dictionary (again) he nails it! The announcer makes fun of his peach fuzz. Don’t hate the playa yo. Dont hate the playa.
9:33 p.m. I think it would be funny if one of the eliminated kids knees Stewart Scott after he asks a dumb question.
9:35 p.m. Shoot. I really need to do laundry but there is so much riding on this. I have to keep blogging.
9:41 p.m. Henares just went down. Wow. Kid was a giant. Down to the Final 4.
9:45 p.m. Okay, Prateek’s next word is “oberek” (you guessed it, not in the dictionary). Damn Pols and their folkdances. He is gone. It is over.
Where do we turn now? As a people, what can we do? I feel so sad. So low. Let global warming come. Let the floods take me. Abandon all hope. The desi kids have failed us.
How old are these kids ?
Old enough to shame if they let us down
okay, getting booted out of the contest early is never going to be as bad as passing out and hitting the deck on national tv.
Desi Scripps winners:
1985 Balu Natarajan 1988 Rageshree Ramachandran 1999 Nupur Lala 2000 George Abraham Thampy 2002 Pratyush Buddiga 2003 Sai R. Gunturi 2005 Anurag Kashyap
Where are they now? Just asking. VH1 wasn’t calling.
balu is a family friend. none of us will EVER forget when he went on johnny carson as was announced as “buh-LOOOO nut-a-JAR-an!” oooh my gosh.
and, damnit. i will never win a spelling bee! 🙁
They do stuff like that on purpose.. If Johnny really cared, he would have asked an Indian ahead of time what the proper pronounciation was..
Don’t feel bad for Samir Patel. After he lost, they started to compare him to Dan Marino. And on Espn Radio, Dan Patrick called him the Jim Kelly of spelling.
Hopefully the next time a desi get compared to Marino and Kelly, its for his arm.
…fade to brown….
(waiting all day to type that)
Speaking of shaming– “whom”, boss. “Whom”.
😉
SM Intern, might as well go all the way:
“for whom we must now all pray, etc.”
When swinging the grammar axe, don’t only cut half through! ^__^
If I was a good speller I wouldn’t be writing a bitter post about kids smarter than me now would I?
’twas a shaming moment, not a teaching one. 😀
Evil has no shame.
If I were really cruel I’d note that spelling and grammar are two completely different subjects. ^__^
Don’t feel bad — I lost my Scripps at the state level, on “medulla.” Spelled it with one “l.”
Shot the “comfort room” lady a really nasty glare so she wouldn’t try to hug me. Who thought that getting hugged by a stranger after misspelling a word in front of hundreds of people was a good idea?
Abhi, you could return the shame if you take a good look at the intern’s original comment…
Oh my god. 🙁 That was so sad.
Cilice?!?!
Neale, I haven’t read the other “unofficial†spelling bee thread, so someone may have already covered this. One Desi from the list seems to be doing fine. Wiki link to Spellbound. The winning word was logorrhea 🙂
While on the subject of Desi brainiacs, show some love to Krishnan Sasikiran. Some say heir apparent to Vishy Anand. Let’s see.
Samir Patel is the Jim Kelly of spelling? Joe Jackson is more like it. Say it ain’t so, Samir!
a navigational instrument resembling a mariner’s compass without magnetic needles and having two sight vanes by which bearings are taken. Poor Nithya.
And while on the Abhi-shame game, bad place to get the spelling of Kaavya wrong 🙂
Speaking of desi achievers: http://www.dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP%2FMGArticle%2FCDP_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173351402720&path=!sports
Somdev Devvar-is-the-man
Oh, peach fuzz…we’re counting on you! I almost can’t bear the suspense!
Sorry link:
NCAA Tennis Champion
PEACH FUZZ NAILS IT!!!
(and his Grandfather just passed away this week? what a soldier.)
Why does that beg for Eva 🙂
On another note – here’s my quandry. Do you think its safe to watch the SB on the gym tele?
Loves words AND working out? HAWT. But then, I fetishize engineers, MIT etc.
That was actually a highly sophisticated joke on my part. Now it doesn’t matter since both names are a disgrace.
PEACHFUZZ STRIKES AGAIN.
Well, I did ask her to repeat after me “In the fifth, my ass goes down”. And, if she’d failed me, she knew if she went to India, there’d be a FOB waiting in a bowl of Sambar ready to pop a cap in her ass.
God damn evan can spell! He got that fiya!!!! serrefine damn!!!!
I blame hip hop.
brown going down.
in my dad’s eyes, the south indian kids – his own – have failed him. last year, when we were watching the spelling bee together, and because of the goodish south indian representation amongst the contestants, he gave me yet another spin on his standard ‘look at how many great things other desi kids are doing’ schpiel. i could have been a national spelling champion! instead, i’m just a loser with four degrees. sigh.
btw did that kid who was in the NYT recently (his parents were deported to india after being rejected for asylum) make it to the finals? i assume not from the 3 pictures – but any idea how far he came?
I met Samir in 2003 when he was in 3rd grade…he’s been at this for a while. Funnily enough, he spelled pizza P-I-S-A but then beat all of us in the next couple of days and took 3rd.
Anna,
Engineer. Yes. MIT. I wish. And is fetishize on the good or bad side of worship? 🙂
Kunal Sah lost in the preliminaries. Didn’t score high enough on the written test.
Dude, in India, she’d be the FOB (I mean only literally: whew!).
Oh, I guess I meant DBD then.
little evan is from the bay area, so i feel like a winner anyway. no thanks to any of our brown contestants, hmph.
Ah, MIT screwheads. The original muscled macho metaphor maharajas!
Jeez this bunch of nerds makes all those FOB engineers running around Sunnyvale look handsome. Spelling bee ain’t gonna get you laid people.
Her bio sheet says she speaks “Canerese” BY this do they mean Kannada?
Spelling bee ain’t gonna get you laid people
Not even fellow bees;-)?
It is. Hence the phrase Canarese in a Kolar mine.
DesiDawg, brother, is my man, begtodiffer, getting to your head?
seriously though man. i’d be stoked if my kid turned out that smart.
He he. The little dweeb that won is a local kid – I’m so proud. He’s 13 & he plays with the San Francisco conservatoire and in his spare time he is doing research at Sandia Nat Labs! WTF!!!
Oh come now! You know we Canadians really are lovable!
just went to the racetracks this weekend, and you’re right abhi, the spelling bee was much more fun… and your blow by blow is the funniest thing i’ve read in days.