Friday, June 3 2005 10:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Houston: Indian American Anurag Kashyap, from Poway, California, has won the 78th Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee competition.

Anurag, 13, bagged the prize by spelling correctly the word "Appoggiatura" (which means short note placed before a longer one). Interestingly, he had never used the musical word before he cracked it to land on top of the spelling world in Washington yesterday (Jun 2, 2005).

Another Indian American, Samir Sudhir Patel, 11, from Texas, had to settle for a tie for second place. He was the youngest of all in the final excruciating rounds and lost the championship when he misspelled "roscian".

Anurag, who has competed in spelling bees since he was in the fourth grade, has also participated in State-level Math counts, Science Olympiad competitions and California Geographic Bee. This was his second attempt at this competition after he tied for 47th place in the 2004 national finals.

A composed Anurag literally cruised through the toughest words. Apart from the word that clinched the title, he correctly spelt cabochon, Priscilla, oligopsony, sphygmomanometer, prosciutto, rideau, pompier, terete, tristachyous, schefflera, ornithorhynchous, agio, agnolotti, peccavi, ceraunograph, exsiccosis and hodiernal.

"But it was not so easy", he said while receiving his trophy. Lost for words, he could just say, "It is just amazing". His second time here prepared him well for the bee and he had resolved to "study harder and win it".

Anurag will take home $22,000 in cash, a $5,000 college scholarship, books and a $1,000 savings bond.

The national champion receives an engraved cup, a $5,000 cash award from Franklin Electronic Publishers, $5,000 cash award from LeapFrog Enterprises Inc, a $5,000 scholarship from Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, and one set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and other reference works.

All 273 competing spellers receive cash prizes that range from $50 to $12,000 for the national champion. All of them get a commemorative watch and Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged) on CD-ROM.