Not only is he seeking to justify the countless hours memorizing untold thousands of words. Sah is spelling to reunite his family.

His parents, who had lived in the United States for 16 years and built and run a hotel in Green River, Utah, were deported to India last year after Sah's father's visa expired and his asylum request was denied.

Today, Sah lives with his uncle at the family's Ramada Inn in Green River.

But the pressure didn't stop the 13-year-old from spending part of his visit to the nation's capital being a teenager.

He was blowing off steam, said his uncle, D.C. Prasad, who has become Sah's guardian and helped push him to the ranks of spelling's elite. Prasad spent part of the afternoon seeing the city, but returned to find Sah horsing around with other contestants.

"I was not here so he was free to do whatever he wanted to do," his uncle said. "Because of that he wasted a whole day."

So, Sah spent Tuesday afternoon squirreled away in his hotel room, making up for lost time, going over and over the words, just as he has for months and years leading up to this moment.

To help him keep his focus, Prasad said his nephew - whose story has drawn national and international media attention - will not be talking to reporters until the competition is over.

Today, Sah and 285 other top spellers from across the nation - including sixth-grader Helena Ma from Burton Elementary in Kaysville - are scheduled to begin competition with a written test and the quarterfinals, that will wipe out most of the field.

Sah competed in the spelling bee last year and was tripped up on the written portion, although this time Prasad says he thinks he's better prepared.

Thursday night, a champion will be crowned on national television.

It remains Sah's hope that, should he capture the title, he will be able to use the national spotlight to draw enough attention to his parent's case that they somehow will be permitted to return to the United States.

But Prasad says his nephew should focus on the spelling and not be burdened with the additional weight.

There's no way to know if winning will help his parents' case or not, Prasad says. "We are expecting that maybe it will . . . [but] he has to concentrate just for the spelling and nothing else."

Sah's father, Kanhai Lal Sah, came to the United States in 1990 and after his visa lapsed applied for asylum, fearing to return to his home, where Muslim and Hindu tensions were high.

His asylum case and the appeals took years, ending up at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the court determined Kanhai Lal Sah had been part of a Hindu group that persecuted Muslims, making him ineligible for asylum.

Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Jim Matheson both tried to help the Sah family with their case, but to no avail.

"We worked long and hard on this case with the family's attorney and with the father," said Hatch spokeswoman Heather Barney. "We have cases like this every single day who come in our door that are heart-wrenching."

"The senator wishes him well in the spelling bee and we're proud of him," Barney said.

Sah jotted down these words and put them up above his desk so that they would motivate him.