Something smells down in Georgia and young Pranav Mahadevan is being forced to take a deep breath of the stink in. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on an exclusive investigation which takes a look at the seedy underbelly of spelling bee competitions in this once great country:

Pranav Mahadevan, a serious speller since second grade, had one final shot at the state spelling bee, where a win would finally give him his ticket to the national stage in Washington.

In anticipation of the Georgia Independent Schools Association spelling bee in Macon last month, the Dunwoody eighth-grader pored over word lists and studied word roots in Greek, Latin and French. But he was eliminated when the judges said he spelled the wrong word. He spelled “ivy”; the judges were looking for “ivied.”

Pranav, a student at Our Lady of the Assumption School in north Atlanta, said he misunderstood the pronouncer. He spelled the word he thought he heard, a word he repeated for the judges before he started spelling. His mother, Kalpana Mahadevan, appealed her son’s dismissal immediately, as is her right under the bee rules. But she said the judges refused to replay the tape to see whether the pronouncer had clearly articulated the word. Instead, they ruled that Pranav was out and proceeded with the contest.

This is personal. First they screw us by misrepresenting Hindus in California textbooks and now they go after our kind in Georgia. Is it Pranav’s fault that Georgians can’t properly articulate the “-ed” at the end of their words? My personal advice would be to set up a commission to look into this. Scientists could come and quantify the acoustics of the competition room and speech therapists could assess the so-called “pronouncer.” Both could later testify as expert witnesses in front of the congressional committee which overseas these matters.

All hope is not lost however. After Hurricane Katrina, the city of Houston demonstrated its limitless generosity by taking in the vast majority of Katrina victims. On a recent trip to Houston, Pranav’s mom learned that the city was also known for taking in those abused by the Spelling Bee System and the incompetent federal and state officials who are responsible for its breakdown:

In Georgia, few students pursue spelling as diligently as Pranav, who has broadcasts of past National Spelling Bees on tape and can rattle off the winning words for the past several years.

His mother networked among parents in Texas, where the Indian-American community is very active in spelling bees. They advised her to move to Texas, saying that Georgia didn’t have a reputation of taking spelling competition seriously.

Georg…ia hates brown people. Continue reading →