Appogiatura

It is not easy to notice that I have mis-spelt the word "appoggiatura" in the title of the blog. If you are not into music theory or are not named Anurag Kashyap, chances are you don't know to spell the word. This word meaning "an embellishing note, usually one step above or below the note it precedes and indicated by a small note or special sign," was what finally decided the winner in the 78th Scripps Spelling Bee this year. The event was interesting as ever and provided for a lot of the suspense and nail-biting moments that a standard thriller does. And it threw up a very pertinent question at me: what is the point of these Spelling Bees anyway?

Granted the final 3 competitors were all of Indian origin, which made me feel proud and embark on another of my mera-bharat-mahan moods, I still felt a little queasy that 11 year-old kids like Samir Patel spend lots of their time trying to know how a word like 'Roscian,' which in all probability they wouldn't ever be hearing again in their lives, is spelt. Kids like him have special talents, agreed; but why test them on skills that are not really essential in life?

Don't jump on me saying how important good spelling is and how verbal skills are a good indicator of intellectual ability; what I am cribbing about here is the point to which people take the whole thing. And this leads to the more controversial question: is competition really good? For it is clear that the Bees go to these lengths only because there are people who can go these lengths.

People have different talents and want to display them to the world. In a media-oriented world where the ordinary man can get his 5 minutes of fame using his 'special' talents in any of the hundreds of talent hunts or reality shows quite easily, it often becomes a rat-race to the telephone trying to get into some show or the other. While I have nothing against the shows as such where they are concerned with the development and promotion of talent (which, incidentally, is an overused word nowadays in my opinion), they also give the common man a taste for the uncommon. What this means to the kid, whose father has always dreamed of being a rocket-scientist or cricket captain, is that, from an early age he/she is forced to try and be the best and grab all possible attention. Brats are created and worse, children who have rarely experienced the freedom that childhood offers. Even as I felt a wistful envy towards Swami and Friends when I was younger, I am afraid the next generation might not hear of him (except of course those whose fathers are into quizzing and literature).

Single-mindedness is, I believe, an attribute desirable among older people, if among any at all; and to make a kid do the whole hog from early morning painting classes to school to evening chess coaching to weekend football training and piano lessons with tuitions liberally spread all over, is simply not fair. The world can go round as fast as it wants to and seats in the IITs and Stanford and MIT get as rare as they can but a child's mind is more stunted by the mad urge to compete all the time. I would have liked to take piano lessons as a kid too but to apply evolution theory and to fit me up for survival anticipating this might just have killed the fun in it for me. And fun is all childhood is about: its fun to play, fun to learn new things, fun to do cool stuff and fun to grow up into a more mature life where you work hard and try and set out to realize your dreams.

Kids need to be encouraged and their talents brought out but to make it the focus of their entire life and make them celebrities too early might make them really brittle soon. I understand that the 3 Spelling Bee kids I started off with are having fun in their lives but the problem is that, in the driveway to Success, there are lots of other kids and not-so-kids-anymore and many of these are left broken and bruised by what they dont understand and a sobering influence is sometimes helpful where people are patted on the shoulder and told "You are doing great. Just try your best and have fun." Success is a dearly desired thing and working hard for it often exhilarating but it pays to remember that an OD of anything kills real fast and bad.

Anyways I am blogging fast and furious now hoping to kill time till 10am when the Federer-Nadal clash starts. Just salivating at the thought of watching two of the best players in the circuit pairing off once again. Bound to be a cracker if ever there was one!!