Speller Alert!

On the eve of the Spelling Bee finals (100 year anniversary of the Bee) the following vignette will do nothing to dispel the stereotype that Indians are born with an innate ability to spell. 😊

Back in 1985, when I was working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I was at work late one night on a particularly boring task and so was listening to music on the radio. This FM radio station had a popular contest. You had to be caller number 7 (or some such random number) and then had to answer their question of the day, like, “Who won the World series in 1968” or “What was the top of the country music charts in 1977” etc. That day as the stars lined up in my favor, it was none of these. If you were the lucky caller number 9 and could spell a word given by the DJ, you would win the special prize! I couldn’t believe that a radio station had a “made-for-Indians” contest such as this! That too on a fricking FM station and not NPR (National Public Radio)!

As luck would have it, I was that caller and was thrilled to make use of my latent GRE vocabulary knowledge! On the AIR that late evening, the word sounded like “Pulcreetude”! I vaguely remembered hearing it before. This was not Scripps Howard Spelling Bee, which meant the meaning of the word or language of origin etc. would not be given. I just took a chance and spelt – “P U L C H R I T U D E”, haltingly. When the DJ announced  with lot of fanfare and FM radio sound effects that I had won, I just could not believe it! Oh Wow!

So, what did I win? A Neil Diamond Vinyl LP Record! Yesss! I was a huge fan of Neil Diamond, from the time when my best friend introduced me to his “Hot August Night” album, when we were in High School. His deep voice painted an amazing and beckoning portrait of “Brooklyn Roads” and America itself in “Coming to America” when I was a just a young boy roaming the “Hyderabad Roads”! Next day I rushed to the station and picked up the record and had a blast showing it off at work. My friends and colleagues were super impressed with my ability to spell such a difficult and uncommon word (meaning “beauty”). Some were jealous about this special skill I had, which unbeknownst to all of us at that time was going to be made obsolete by spellcheck, ten years later! BTW, I did not actually own a record player, and so, was happy to gift my contest winnings to my boss, who, as it turned out, was also a huge Neil Diamond fan!

On looking back, I now feel like that first Kenyan guy who won the marathon, just because he was bored and decided to give this running thing a try! 😊

Seriously though, if you feel we Indians are genius spellers because of our genes, get a load of these hilarious signs from India 😄 :