JOIN USCollective gasps at kids' skills
But kids at the finals of the India Spell Bee spelling contest crunched the words like it was a late Sunday brunch.
The finger nails of about 50 kids and their parents, who competed in three categories during the final, might have vanished at the end of the closely fought competition. The competition level at the packed ING Vysya Auditorium here on Sunday pushed the organisers, indiaspellbee.com, into multiple tie-breakers and tie-breakers for tie-breakers.
By about 2 pm, after innumerable rounds of spelling of great calibre, a winner each in the beginners’, junior and advanced categories were somehow arrived at.
Dimunitive Kurchi Mitra of National Public School, Koramangala, outspelt her competitors in the beginners’ category, while Agnibho Chatterjee and Sudeshna Trilok took the honours by pipping Shreenidhi Deshpande and Kedarnath Rao to the post in the juniors and advanced categories, respectively.
There was plenty of cheer at the competition for little Zohar, who nearly pulled off an upset in the beginners’ category and also Achyutha, who won the hearts of the neutrals with his onstage quirks.
The parents, who relentlessly hoped, prayed and egged their little ones on, too, had some spelling tests in store for them during the breaks between rounds. The quality of spelling effectively proved that some of the parents desperately needed some stern advice and spelling tuition from their much superior wards.
The event was held across 110 schools in Bangalore with nearly 2,200 students taking part in the preliminary round held in December. The preliminaries too were in three categories –– beginners (3rd and 4th standards), juniors (5th and 7th standards) and advanced (8th to 10th standards).