Indian Buzz at the Spelling Bee

Scripps Spelling Bee is an annual competition for kids who have neither turned 16 nor passed beyond the eighth grade. I have been following the competition since 2000 and it has come to become lot more popular now than in 2000. Kids of Indian origin tend to win the competition beyond comparison and there leads to a lot of stereotypes and spite. I will address them in this post.

I started this post about a year ago. I left it unpublished having not found clarity to my thoughts. Having struggled with vocabulary for the GRE exam, I had a sense of what is invloved in the spelling competition. I appreciated the effort put in by the young kids who manage to spell out arcane words that nobody has heard and they do all this under the glaring eyes of the TV spolight and pressure from fellow contestants. The first few years I saw this contest on TV, I felt deep sympathy for the kids. The stress was very visible on the faces of the contestants. It is hard to not notice that majority of these kids are geeky looking and more so that they belonged to the minority South Asian(Indian) community. Over the years the geekiness of these kids is replaced by a witty sense of humor in some of these kids. That was a welcome change.

The South Asian kids have dominated the event(ever since I have been following it) and their participation has grown over the years. Eight out the last twelve winners were of Indian origin. Here are some links on 2010 spelling bee champion
Spelling bee winner part of Indian-American streak
Veeramani wins for Cleveland
Washington Post Image gallery on National Spelling Bee

It is astounding if you see the statistics of how many Indian kids make it to the top and win it. Consider this, last year 14 out of 41 spellers in the semi-finals were Indian Americans. This year(2010), an estimated 30 Indian americans will compete among a total of 273 - 11 percent in all. This is a big if you know that Indian Americans are about only 1% of the US population. The winners of the last three years were all Indians. In 2008 it was Sameer Mishra from Lousiana, in 2009 year it was Kavya Shivashankar from Kansas and this year it is Annamika Veeramani from Ohio. The list of all the champions so far can be found here

However every success by an ethnic minority surely leads to stereotyping and mockery of the group by regular folks and mass media alike. I know the sterotypes associated with successful children of immigrant parents - they have pushy parents, not well rounded, book worms, geeky etc. Here is a recent article by Washinton about spelling bee contestant stereotypes - 'Spelling bee participants work to dispel the stereotypes'. While trying to find the stereotype on Indian parents, I found a clip from a famous sitcom Goodness Gracious Me. You can view it here or embedded video below



To see the sterotype associations, one just has to view the comments on any of the articles covered in the major news websites to see how much negativity is fostered by people. The negativity is fostered in International portals as well as in Indian websites by both Indian and Non-Indian readers alike. Here are some excerpts of some negative comments on news about kids of Indian origin winning

Belittling the efforts is a comment at slate.com -
Rote memorization is a waste of time. They should focus on more creative problem-solving skills: science, math, even art and literature. Thankfully, neither I nor any other Indian kid in my area cared about the spelling bee.


Mockery in a comment at nytimes.com
14 year old Anamika Veeramani from Ohio won the National Spelling Bee. She won when her opponent was unable to spell “Anamika Veeramani”.


Ethnic insult at rediff.com
Indians are best "parrots"..they can like parrots memorise words and keep uttering..rediff reporters are junk..


Jon Stewart, with all due respect for the topics he covers, could not avoid the stereotype either. But his daily show takes aim at everybody and that he what he does best-satire on current affairs.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Headlines - Asian Fusion
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Brushing aside the stereotypes, the competition itself is gaining in popularity and was telecast live primetime on abc this year. The journey to primetime has been slow but is aided by the documentary Spellbound made in 2002 which was very popular. In 2005 there was a movie titled 'Bee Season' staring Richard Gere. Then in 2006 the movie 'Akkelah and the Bee' starring Lawrence Fishburne was also based on the Spelling bee competition. Spelling Bee is now mainstream and covered as a sporting event on ESPN every year.

Popularity is good as it brings exposure to the competition and hardwork of the kids. But the real question stills remains. Why are Indians so good at Spelling Bee? My Google search did not give me a closure.

Here are some links to what I found myself looking for answers to the above question. I answers ranged from
Silly by joe six packs at Yahoo Answers! -
How come indians or east asians always are the winners of Spelling Bee?
to sensible at Slate - Why Are Indian Kids So Good at Spelling?
and rumination at The Root -
Is Spelling a Cultural Activity?

While success can bring stereotypes, it can also bring patronizing people to the front. Look here - Indian Americans: The New Model Minority. You can find refutation here -Nobody's Model Minority

I am still looking for answers. Let me know what your thoughts are on this.

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What to know more, here are some more links
Striving in America, and in the Spelling Bee
Once again, yet ANOTHER Indian kid wins the National Spelling Bee
Spelling Bee contest in US: Indians cast a spell
Kansas gal Kavya Shivshankar bee-comes spelling princess
W-I-N-N-E-R! Desi Kid Wins Spelling Bee, Again

More on my problems with Airports

This is a concluding part of my previous post - Why I hate Airports.

Also one has to deal with one or all of the following people - 1. Indifferent, 2. Meddlesome and 3. Moody. To fully understand my case, I have to explain my recent experience where I had to deal with all three kinds (Indifferent, Meddlesome and Moody) of people and the other baggage (pun intended) that comes with it.

We reached the airport at around 3:00 PM. The sign board at the ramp signaled that the Air India departures were at Terminal B. That was all good. But on reaching the Terminal B, there was hardly any space to stop. Nor was there a sign for Air India on the gates. I saw Jet Airways gate and that is where I decided my stop would be. I somehow found a nook to stop and put my hazard lights on. I unloaded the bags from my car trunk and took them into the terminal to find the Air India gate. I had asked a couple of airport personnel where the Air India ticket counter was. Both of them were indifferent. Finally a third guy responded that the Air India was level 2 and pointed to the right. I thought from his pointing that Level 2 was the far right end of the same floor. As I dragged along, my eyes fell on the elevator and I saw a small yellow sign reading Air India.

Apparently they shifted the Air India to the basement of the airport, I mean Level 2, while all the other airlines were at the main level. I handed over the responsibility of the bags to my wife and headed back to my car to park it. All this while, I was scared of my car being towed away. It had been parked for a long time without anyone in the car.

I drove to the parking lot, took the parking ticket and headed to the Air India check-in counter where my wife and mother-in-law were waiting. The line was huge as always. But in all this chaos I saw a digital weighing machine at the end of the line. There was a row of seats to the left of the weighing machine with two old men sitting. They appeared to be in their mid 60s. A few feet in front of the weighing machine were a few other passengers and their families. I took the bags and placed one bag on the weighing machine. This action of mine somehow generated an extreme interest in one of the old gentlemen. He jumped out of his chair and began to look at what I was doing. He saw the same thing I saw and he quickly blurted out said 52 lbs. He said that to me and his friend who was still sitting. He turned to me and said 'Its OK'. I took the bag off the machine and took it back a few feet where my wife and mother-in-law were standing. I came back with the second suitcase and laid it on the machine floor. This time I saw it as 25. I couldn't believe it. The old man who was still there jumped again and said in some broken Hindi 'I changed it to Kgs. It is now easy for you. 25 may be tough'. I knew that Kgs is short for Kilos or Kilograms.

I am already bothered now by the actions of the old guy. I brought the cabin bag and weighed. The old man said 'It is 8.8 Kgs you should be fine'. My wife took out the heavy hard cover books from both the suitcases. I weighed them again. The meddlesome old man now gave me a pass signal with for 23 and 23.5 Kgs each. I did not know if I was to feel happy for the help or feel aggravated at his meddlesomeness. But I couldn't be distracted by this; I had miles to go before I sleep. Yes, literally I have 125 miles more to go before I really sleep and that was hours away.

We waited in line at the check-in counter. When it was our turn, the guy behind the counter greeted us and told to place one bag on the pedestal to weigh it. I put on of the check-in suticase and for some reason it was already showing 2.0 Kgs and did not change. He rudely says to me in a low voice, 'Can you take it off the machine'. I had him repeat twice to understand what he was saying. I took the bag off and he reset the machine which showed 0.0. I replaced the bag and it read 23.2 Kgs. I was relieved when he took the bag in and said it was ok. The calculator inside was telling me it was overweight by a pound. I placed the second bag and it read 23.8 Kgs. This time also he took the bag in and said it was ok. I was really happy now as I had passed 3 pounds of excess baggage. It was kind of a sweet revenge from my previous experience where I had to pay the fine for excess bag weight.

He seemed to be in a pleasant mood. He silently came close to me said I could put any stuff in the 2 bags that were checked-in if I wanted to. I was surprised at his generosity and asked my wife to hand me the books she was holding, to put them in the bags. Before I could put them, he asked if I had carry-on bag. I said yes and placed that on the scale. It read 8.8 Kgs. He said 'You can put whatever you want in this bag and I will check it in also. You can pick them up at the Mumbai Airport'. I explained this to my Mother-in-law to see if she was comfortable doing that. She said no and wanted to keep it with on the flight. This must have pissed off the guy. He said 'I put the tags to the carry-on bag. Do not ADD ANYTHING to this after you go up. They will check the weight again and fine you'.

I should have noticed the change in his tone and mood. If I had enough Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), I would have known not to bother him anymore and move away from there. But the Indian in me wanted to bargain. I asked if I could put the books for kids (I was using the sympathy bait too) in the already checked-in bags. He said ‘NO, that would make the bags overweight’ and that I had to pay for the excess baggage. Sanity prevailed in me and I took the tickets. We quickly moved away from there to the ticket issuing counter at the left end corner of the room.

From here on, my wife took over. I guess women have a better EQ or others tend to be nice to them. It may be a combination of both. The lady behind the counter was very courteous to us now. My wife even requested an aisle seat for her mom and got it. I am sure if it was me, I would have gotten 'NO AISLE TICKETS FOR YOU'.

So we went upstairs after collecting the tickets and stood in a long line for coffee and some food. For some reason, people go crazy over food in crowded places. It took thirty minutes to get a cup of coffee and Vegetarian flied lice (I mean fried rice) at a Chinese fast food vendor. I had to go vegetarian as it was an auspicious day. We said our goodbyes to my mother-in-law at around 6:30 PM, paid the insanely expensive parking fee ($3 for every 1/2 hour) and headed to the Bridgewater temple, and then reached home at 10:05 PM.

I thought that the ordeal was over. But life of late seems like a day in the movie 'Groundhog Day' where the lead weatherman lives the same day over and over again. I have to make a trip to the airport again this month. Only this time I will be picking a different person, my brother, at a different airport.

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As a side note, there is also a certification in Emotional Quotient. One of my friends recommended Daniel Goleman's 'Emotional Intelligence' which is on my list to read in the future.

Why I hate Airports

Last Wednesday I had to drop my Mother-In-Law off at the airport. I should tell you upfront that I am not a big fan of airports. I am nervous as hell going to the airport. And that's wether it's me or my family or friends. I am not afraid of flying. I have other reasons for disliking it.

The process begins 2-3 days before the day of journey, in packing the bags. I pride myself in packing bags, not just mine but others too. I found myself volunteering to bag my friend’s suitcase while in school and spending (read wasting) nights at it. I hate overweight baggage. The airline services used to be more tolerant on weight, but the times have changed a lot in the last five years. Not only did they reduce the weight of bags from 70 lbs to 50 lbs each, they are also strictly imposing fees for overweight bags even if the bag was a pound in excess of the specified limit. The last time my wife had to go to India, I had to dole out $50 for the 2lbs excess weight that one bag had at the Air India terminal.

The anxiety kicks into full gear with the packing and weighing at home during this period. Adding and removing the stuff on speculation that the weighing machine is faulty, or in the hope that the airlines will be tolerant this time makes it worse. And this goes on till the day of the journey. This is more or less like the mood swings of a manic-depressive person. One day you add and other minute you remove.

While going to airports, the public is in a mad rush there trying to outwit the authority and one another. The reasons can be several and each person's story is different. Some are in a rush to reach the airport before everyone else on time to pick their loved one at the airport. Some park their car illegally on the ramp/shoulder a mile or two on the highway from the airport if the flight is delayed or waiting for the call from the one they are picking. They do this to save a few bucks on parking and in turn get busted by the police sometimes. While there are few who are there to drop off someone and park the car at the terminal gate for long hours before being asked to move by the police or the parking authority.

In saying all the above I am not trying to portray myself as a saint. In fact I succumb to the same vices I listed above. All of the above wrong doings have affected as to be pressured sufficiently to commit one or all of them myself over a period of time. I guess this is what they call peer pressure. But these wrong doings by others and myself adds a lot of pressure. This is more compounded when the passenger is International bound(read to India).

Then there is the day of the journey. One has to be there at the airport hours in advance. If the airport is two hours away and the weather like Northeast Pennsylavnia had last Wednesday, the whole day is gone. To make matters worse, if the day is a weekday that means a day off at work and loss of pay. In my recent case the Air India flight was at 7:00 PM and the ticket said the check-in must be four hours before the flight time. If I had to be at the airport by 3:00 PM, I must start driving at Noon as the airport was about 120 miles from my home and the weather was bad. If you add the same amount of time for the return journey, it makes it almost ten hours for the whole process. That is twenty hours of productive time wasted if you count my wife's time as well, as she accompanied me in dropping her Mother at the airport.

The story is continued at Airports 2

An Indian Needs his Fire.

If you are an Indian, you need your food to be hot. Hot not in the sense of being 100F or 120F, but in the sense of being spicy. We need it as hot as it can be. If you are new to US of A the closest fast food that would satisfy an Indian’s appetite for spicy food is Taco Bell. I have no doubt when I say, that the best way to curtail Indian Immigration is shut down all Taco Bells in USA.

An Indian can survive any inclement weather, any harsh working conditions as long as can get his spicy food. You take it away, his world crumbles. The other thing that Indians are fond of is Traveling. Have you seen any tourist destination? It is filled with Indians. No matter how remote the destination, you will always find Indians sightseeing the place, and there will always be an Indian restaurant there.

Indians crave spicy food and always are on the look out for Indian restaurant wherever they go. They must have Indian food. Have you been to an Indian Temple or any function, there is always a huge line at the food and crazy confusion to be the first one to get the food. They don’t want to miss out on the food. They have come this long and will not go without the food. They would rather miss the event they came for, but not the spicy Indian food at the event.

Having said that, Taco Bell is our savior. Since Indian restaurant’s are not everywhere and they are highly expensive, we go to Taco Bell as our cheap fast food option. But what makes a Taco Bell so attractive to Indians. First the food is spicy and has rice on their menu. We hate the concept of salads and meat loaf stuffed between a bun(burger). Salad is what we call gaddi in telugu(grass) or gaas poos in Hindi(grass with rhyming word appended to it to make it a good phrase). Meaning they are meant to be eaten by animals and not by humans. Burger are sometimes okay as long as they are spicy burgers. They are also highly dry. Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's have all played with Spicy Burgers on their menu and discontinued them.

If you had looked at these fast food chains Ethnic statistics(if there was any), there would have been a huge spike in Indian customers at these places when these spicy burgers were on their burger menu and a even higher phenomenal drop when they were dropped from their menu. While I was in school at Morgantown, my friends and myself would visit Burger King quite often as long as they had Jalapeno Poppers. We would get Baja Chalupa and Spicy Burrito from Taco Bell and go to Burger King right across the street for the poppers and have our food there for about an hour. We were students, we were in no hurry to finish the food fast. We went to fast food not because we were short on time, but because we were short on dime (meaning cash).

I will get back to my story of why we like Taco Bell. The food being offered is spicy and has rice on half of their menu. But that is not good enough. It is only quarter of the whole pie. The remaining part of the pie is in the magical quotient that God has sent us to all Indians in North America called ‘Taco Bell Fire Sauce’. This Taco Bell Fire Sauce is next to Ambrosia. Taco Bell Fire Sauce is to humans as Ambrosia was for Angels. We do not need a mild sauce or a hot sauce. We need only the Fire Sauce and lots of it.

I also have designated numbers for each item on the Menu just like there are octane grades in Gasoline. Like a Chalupa is 4, Chicken Wrap supreme is 6, soft taco 3 etc. These numbers vary very slightly among Indians. The numbering is based on a highly complex algorithm. The number is defined as the number of Taco Bell Fire Sauce we need for these items on the menu. The other factor determining the number is the hotness factor of the food. If the food is hot it’s number is less and vice versa which is quite obvious. Also the dryness quotient is an important factor. A chalupa and a crunch wrap requires more. But a burrito would need less.

But every story has a villain. Authority, as in every place, has it’s way of poking it’s ugly hand in the people’s business. They like to dictate what we like and what we do not like. In this case the authority is the delivery person at a Taco Bell drive through. Whenever an Indian goes through a Taco Bell drive through, he does not fail to let the person know how many fire sauce he needs. Well he can only request, but he will not get what he asked. Like a pay check is deducted almost 30% of your hard earned income, the taco bell authority will cut the number of taco bell fire sauce you requested. The number you get depends on how cranky the authority is that day, or what he believes is required by you, or what he believes your tolerance quotient is based on his own intuition which will be biased, based on his own tolerance for this precious commodity. If the authority is Indian, the number might be close to what you asked. If the number is white or black or yellow then the number is definitely going to be low. You might only get 50% what you asked for. If the authority is brown(Hispanic or South American) then your number might be close to 80%.

But an Indian does not deter from fighting the authority back on his right to get the required number of fire sauce. The Indian will count the number given to him at the delivery window. If the number is less, he will ask for more though he is well aware of the impending condescending, frustrated expression on the authority’s face. He will count his number one more time. The number is still going to be less. Some will get satisfied with this. But there are some mavericks like me, who would park the car in the parking lot, go in and get some more until he is satisfied that the fire sauce would be sufficient. Some more hot headed guys would start a fight. This fight between the Indian and Authority, that I have noticed and participated since 9 years, still goes on. As a continuation of this fight for fire sauce I started a slogan which one day, I hope will spread like Fire. The slogan is

“An Indian needs his Fire”

An Indian needs his fire sauce. There is no second option. It is his birth right.

Dont Ask Wont Tell

Here are some of the questions that I am frequently asked that I am amused by, peeved at and most often than not, I do not have answers to. These are typical questions asked mostly by people who do not know me well but do ask me. I categorize them into 2 categories.
First Category: By Indians (@Work, general acquaintance outside, in India during vacation etc)
1. How long are you in US?
They ask this to assess where I stand monetarily and immigration status.
2. Do you have a GC? If not what stage is it in?
If I say Yes I would be lying as I don’t have one. If I say NO, the person asking is already comparing me with people (s)he know. My long lost cousin XYZ got his GC in 3 years and he was not even half as smart as me. This guy must be worse than him or he must have done something to tick off the INS.
3. It has been 8 years and you still don't have a GC? (Put a shocked expression in the asking persons face here).
Yes I do not have a GC even after 8+ years in US.
4. If you don't mind may I know you Salary/Pay?
Yes, you can know. I am getting paid well enough to survive.
5. Is it true that Indians are treated like second grade citizens?
You don't need to answer this. Even before you can answer this, the person asking has an answer and that it Yes, they are treated second grade.
6. Is it true that Indians are nothing but cheap labor in US?
Don't even bother to answer again. Answering yes will only make you a cheap labor in a distant US who left his home country and become a US supporting traitor. Answering no will only strengthen the asking person’s convention that I am lying and Indians are indeed cheap labor in US. You lose anyway and you cannot change the opinion.
7. Did you think about starting a company? A person that I know who knows somebody owns a company. Why don't you?
The above question irritates me to the core. I am not interested in owning a company. I am happy working for somebody else where I have to go at 8 and come home by 6:00PM, relax, watch a game and sleep. Is that a wrong thing? Should I own a company to be considered successful?
8. Why did you not do your MBA? Do you have plans to do your MBA?
This is one more question that every Indian has asked me. Well I do not want to do MBA. In fact I don't even know if I want to go into Management for now. If I answer this, I would be considered not a Management material. If I say Yes, I want to but was not able as I had no time then I am considered not an MBA material. Either way the Q person has made an assumption on me that I not an M Material.

Now onto the other side of the Globe. Questions asked by Americans. There are again questions asked by people who do not know me well or have not attempted to know anything about India or just do not care but do ask because I happened to be there.
1. Do they celebrate Christmas in India? Do Indians celebrate Christmas?
No they do not is my answer unless the person is a Christian. Christmas is not a National event. It is a religious festival celebrated by Christians. Just because 90% of Americans are Christians and most celebrate it; it does make it a National event. I am a Hindu and hence do not celebrate Christmas. It's like asking an American in India 'Do they celebrate Diwali in America?' Do they? I hate holiday season when this question is bombarded repeatedly.
2. Are there still Elephants in Indian Streets?
Yes believe it or not this question was asked and no he was not joking. My answer was 'Yes, they still do. In fact we used to own one that we used to drop me at school and pick me up back'. Yes I did answer that way. A stupid answer to a stupid question.
3. Are there still snakes and snake charmers in India?
Yes, there are. But India is developed now. So all of us carry anti-venom in our pockets just in case we got bit by a stray cobra.
4. What is your stand on the American war on Iraq?
If I say I do not support, I am considered an anti American leech sucking the American economy.
If I say I do support, I am considered a bigot who is trying to suck up to an American.
5. Who do you support Republican or Democrat?
If I answer Democrat, I am branded an Anti Capitalistic Socialist.
If I answer Republican, I am branded a Conservative hypocrite who forgot secularism.
6. Who would you see as a Democratic candidate Obama or Clinton?
If I say Obama, I am an elitist male chauvinist.
If I say Clinton, I am a conservative racist.
7. Do you want to stay back in this country or go back?
At first I thought, the person asking the question wanted to hear that I should go back. I was more than happy to answer Yes as that was my intention. But to my surprise I was shocked to hear the response from the first person that asked me this question and every other person that asked me the same question. Whenever I said Yes, they were shocked and said 'Why? You don't like this country? Isn't US more developed than India. Aren't the living conditions way better off that in India?'. I was not prepared to answer such barrage of questions and now I got used to their shocked expressions and questions.
When I say yes I want to stay back, I know what they are thinking as well. They make me the cause of Americans losing jobs as I am stole one of their jobs permanently. This I can tell from their demeanor.
8. You do have a HDTV and/or XBOX.
If I say Yes to either of them, I am a show off.
If I say No I am a pauper who should be shun.


This is general, if I am asked by a stranger at an Indian Grocery Store or Wal-Mart as to what I do, I know what to do? I run away from him/her. That's a Quixtar/Amway candidate calling you and you are better off at least 10 miles from them.