Some words, some luck

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, OCT. 21. Scrabble, one of the most popular intellectually stimulating games for kids, has now found its way into inter-school competitions.

As many as 40 students from various schools came together and pitted their word power skills against each other in an Inter- School Scrabble Competition held at St. Columbus School here today. The objective was to promote scrabble as an entertaining non-textual path to good vocabulary.

Each school was represented by two participants, one from Class IV and one from Class V who were selected through intra-school competitions. Delhi Public School, Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj and Noida; Modern School, Vasant Vihar; Ryan International School, Noida and Mayur Vihar; Apeejay, Noida and Saket; Convent of Jesus and Mary; Air Force Bal Bharati School and many others participated in the event.

Up to the semi-finals the students of Class IV and V played separately but in the grand finale, two winners of each class were clubbed together in a somewhat unfair competition as a Class V student would naturally have a better vocabulary. The dissatisfaction extended to the participation prizes -- Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars' are not the sort of toys that would excite budding scrabble champions.

Creating a mosiac of words by the permutation and combination of seven tiles with the timer ticking away can be quite a daunting task. But for Jahnavi Mittal, a topper from Modern School, who came up with words as far fetched as ``Qua'', it was more or less a cakewalk.

A voracious reader -- having read all Harry Potters and Enid Blytons by Class III -- and a regular player of the game, she emerged a clear winner with a score of 175 points. She was followed by Manogna of Air Force school who is also an avid reader and a regular at the British Council Library. Kumar Setu of Ryan International walked away with the third prize.

The winners seemed to have made no extra preparations for the event organised by Mattel as they play scrabble regularly as a hobby and read extensively to enhance their vocabulary. As Jahnavi puts it, ``I was just lucky that this competition came along''.

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