Arvind Mahankali wins the Spelling Bee with the word 'Knaidel' — 6th consecutive Indian American winner

This time too, the Scripps Spelling Bee champion is a 13-year-old Indian boy from New York.

Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills became the national champion on Thursday night, winning the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling "knaidel" — the German-derived Yiddish word for a small mass of leavened dough. He outlasted 11 other finalists in nearly two and a half hours of televised competition. (AP, IndiaPost)

Arvind had finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012 — and both times, German-derived words were his nemesis. This time, he got one German word in the finals and the winning word was from German-derived Yiddish, and he spelled both with ease.

"The German curse has turned into a German blessing," he said.

He becomes the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner — and the 11th in the past 15 years, a run that began when Nupur Lala captured the title in 1999. He is also the first boy to win since 2008, and the first winner from the New York City area since 1997. (Wikipedia)

His prize: $30,000 in cash and prizes plus the huge cup-shaped trophy. And now that he's "retired" from the spelling bee, the aspiring physicist — who admires Albert Einstein — plans to spend the summer studying physics.

His parents are of Hyderabad origin: his father Srinivas is an IT consultant, his mother a physician. When Arvind's name was announced, he looked up at the falling confetti and cracked his knuckles — his signature gesture at the bee.