The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an eagerly anticipated event in Americas education calendar, attracting thousands of school students across the US every year, particularly those of Indian origin who have displayed an uncanny ability of repeatedly winning the Spelling Bee. Though not yet as high-profile as its American counterpart, India has its own Spelling Bee — the Marrs International Spelling Bee in association with Cambridge University Press — and Orissa-based C. Nirmall Palaniappan (8) is the winner of the Spelling Bee Competition 2008, held in Chennai in June. This class IV student of Kendriya Vidyalaya No.3, Bhubaneswar, scored the maximum combined points in various rounds of the competition involving English spelling, crossword puzzles and identifying words based on phonetic symbols and their meanings, to be adjudged the national winner in category II (class III-IV students). Last year Nirmall had won the spelling nationals held in Goa in category I (class I-II students).The annual Marrs International Spelling Bee Competition conducted by Marrs Events, a Kochi-based organiser, drew participation from 1,000 class I-XII school students countrywide. The Spelling Bee is conducted in four stages across six categories (for students of classes I and II; III and IV; V and VI; VII and VIII; IX and X; XI and XII) in 18 states of the Indian Union. The first round of the competition is held in local schools with winners and qualifiers partici-pating in district level champion-ships. Subse-quently they scale up to state-level championships with toppers entering the national final.
Though I had won last year in category I and knew the ropes, I had to work really hard to win this year. I memorised almost 4,000 words and learned their meaning and correct British pronunciation, says Nirmall who will represent India at the international final to be held in Mumbai this month (August).
According to Nirmall, much of the credit for his victory should go to the training he received at SIP Academy, Chennai, which offers the Abacus and Brain Gym programmes to develop and sharpen latent mathematical skills of children aged six-12. However theres more to Nirmall than words and spelling. In the SIP Prodigy 2007 pan-India compet-ition he was adjudged second runner up for solving nearly 100 math problems in five minutes using abacus methodology.
Moreover last year he also secured the 16th rank in the National Cyber Olympiad Finals. And in every venture he is supported and backed by his parents P.L. Chockalingam, a chartered accountant and mother S.P. Vijayala-kshmi, a business management graduate.
Fully focused on the forthcoming international spelling bee, the desire to excel certainly drives this eight-year-old champion.
Bindu Gopal Rao (Bangalore)