A racy battle of words filled with tongue-tied moments and vocabulary lessons had Maharishi Vidya Mandir emerge victorious at the city finals of the ‘HDFC Life Spell Bee — India Spells 2012’ held at St Bede’s Anglo Indian High School, Santhome, on February 26.
Battling competition from 61 schools, Anagha Sethuraman of Maharishi Vidya Mandir, Chetpet, won the pulsating fourth edition of the national level spelling competition. More than 690 students from across the city participated in this preliminary round.
Anagha breezed through the mind-boggling rounds, including a ‘picture tray’ round that had contestants identify visuals and spell them out, a ‘Poesy’ round to spot wrong spellings in poetry, and the thrilling rapid fire round that had the nervous contestants rolling out spellings of a jumble of words, all in a minute.
Malvika Sawhney of Bala Vidya Mandir, Adyar, and Sharat Kumar Nair of Lalaji Memorial Omega International School, Kolapakkam, were declared runners up. Chief guest Dr Miruna George, Head of the Undergraduate Department of English, Stella Maris College, handed over the awards to the prize winners.
Anagha will compete with winners from 29 other cities at the national finals scheduled to be held this month in Mumbai. The winner of the grand finale will get an opportunity to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee to be held in Washington DC in June.