Kunal and the Bee
'Gloomy speller' hopes win will open door for parents to return from India
A couple of months ago, Kunal had ordered a $150 two-volume set of difficult words — the famous "Nat's Notes" used, as he says, by "professional spellers" — but the company lost his order. So, the list of words only arrived a few days ago. Kunal relates this fact with resignation and a curt, sullen bravado. Everything is going wrong, his demeanor says, but I'm determined to win.
For a champion speller, Kunal is, ironically, a boy of few words, so reticent on a recent evening that he seemed to speak without opening his mouth. Perhaps he's just tired of being interviewed, tired of explaining to the New York Times and NBC that he needs to win the Bee in Washington, D.C., next week so the U.S. government will let his parents back into the country.
At 13, Kunal has faith that immigration officials will be moved by his unrelenting efforts to memorize pretty much the entire dictionary; that they'll recognize that the parents of a boy this smart and dedicated deserve to live in America.
Kunal, born in the United States and therefore a U.S. citizen, moved to Green River with his parents at age 3, when they bought the town's Budget Inn. Later, his parents built a Ramada Inn at the east end of town, just down the hill from where Main Street heads off into sage brush.
On a beautiful spring evening in mid-May, Kunal sits on the sofa studying. He copies down pages of spelling words, writing each word six times if it's especially hard. This page begins with chez, moves through chionablepsia (a fancy word for snow-blindness) and then on to chitarrino.
When you know big words and you use them in your real life, Kunal says, sometimes your friends wonder why you couldn't just use a simpler word. Asked for an example, Kunal offers this word: melancholy.
Spelling competitions have experienced an odd renaissance in recent years. Despite the fact that spell-check software has nearly eliminated the desire to learn to spell, Americans have flocked to two spelling bee movies and a Broadway musical. We're a people who love our white-knuckle competitions, whether they involve grown men racing cars in a circle or children laboriously taking a stab at the word filiopietistic.
The spelling bee movies and musical are, to some degree, a celebration of the underdog, the misfit, the overachiever. So it's not surprising that Kunal's struggle has caught the attention of the national media. His story has the bonus angle of being about immigration at a time when the country is struggling to decide who and how many and when.
Recent comments
Hey, kunal sah i jst wanted to say how you have inspired me in so...
morena_6969@hotmail.com | May 1, 2008 at 8:09 a.m.
