Within nine days of American-Indian Snigdha Nandipati making history by winning the 85th edition of the annual national Scripps Spelling Bee 2012 contest staged in May in Washington DC, USA — in which Americans of Indian origin have bagged first rank for five years consecutively — Bangalore-based Samvida Venkatesh (15) was crowned national champion in the HDFC India Spells 2012 competition (open to students of classes V-IX) in Mumbai. Following five elimination rounds at the school, city and national levels, Samvida bested 32 finalists from 30 cities countrywide to bag a cash prize of Rs.150,000, a trophy, and an all-expenses paid trip to witness the Scripps Spelling Bee 2013 finals in the US.

A class IX student of National Public School, Indiranagar, Bangalore who is currently doing a month’s summer internship at Cambridge University, Samvida is elated by her spelling bee success, attributing it to her ability to handle pressure on any stage, “a big lesson I learnt from participating in seven spelling competitions over the past five years. Most of all, I owe it to my parents for their tremendous support, and my school for encouraging me to participate in such events”.

Samvida’s interest in hard-to-spell words and their etymology goes back to 2007, when at age ten she registered for Murthy’s South Zone Spelling Bee — her first spelling competition — and qualified as a city finalist. “I remember watching the US Scripps Spelling Bee on television even then,” she recalls. In 2007-08, this teenager bagged fifth place in the international round of the MaRRs Spelling Bee staged in Mumbai. The next year, she and a teammate won second place in the Scholastic Word-master Challenge followed by a third position in the Rotary Club-sponsored Spellstar 2010, and subsequently first and second positions in the ING Vysya India Spell Bee 2011 and 2012 editions.

The elder of two siblings, Samvida was introduced to the reading habit at the early age of four by her parents — Sudheesh Venkatesh, an HRD manager in the Azim Premji Foundation, and Veena, a textiles designer. “I read 10-15 books per month, so I have probably read about 2,000 books to date. I don’t limit myself to any particular genre,” says this John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer and J.K. Rowling fan.

A scholar of the NCERT-sponsored National Talent Search Examination — a annual scholarship programme for academically gifted students in basic sciences — Samvida is weighing the possibility of a career in biotech and/or science. “Poor levels of health and education in rural India are disturbing trends which I hope to do something about in the future,” says this young go-getter.

Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)

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