I felt as if a python was squeezing my belly, which was fluttering with an entourage of butterflies. I clenched and unclenched my sweaty palms in a rhythmic motion and tried to keep a straight face. Words and alphabets randomly swam before my eyes and I tried my utmost to concentrate on anything but the event, which loomed ominously before me--the first round of the Dawn spelling bee! You probably think I was one of …showed first 75 words of 722 total…

…showed last 75 words of 722 total…bee, but to life itself." My students did not make it to the finals of the spelling bee, and had to battle a surge of disappointment. That batch I had trained for the spelling contest, has now graduated. They are wrapped up in their college lives. But I know for a fact, that the experience chiselled them and shaped them, and aided them in evolving into better students, better countrymen and most importantly, better humans.