Insect Attack

Oh, what a little nagging question can cause one to discover!

Over the past few days, Delhi has been literally bombarded with gazillions of small insects that try their best to get into people’s eyes, ears and other openings as they go about shopping (people, not the insects) in the crowded markets. One just can’t escape their onslaught if one is near any source of light. It seems that the festive season has become sort-of ‘pestive’ season!

So the question that keeps biting at the back of my mind: Who are these insects?

Yesterday, as I was returning from a friend’s home on my two-wheeler, waiting for a red light to turn green, a whole army of these insects flew into me – and met their inglorious (for them) and annoying (for me) death. Had it not been for the helmet with a tight visor around my head, my eyes and nose would’ve been full of these tiny creatures, causing me to swerve and perhaps crash my scooter. Thank you Habsolite, Studds and other helmet makers!

Today morning I was wondering again about who these insects were and how come they invade Delhi almost each year just before Diwali. And why are they in so much abundance this time around? Earlier, I had remarked to my friend that the subject is worthy of a story in a Delhi paper.

As I was still wondering, what do I see? A front-page news story titled ‘Mutant insects over Delhi’ in the Hindustan Times!

The insects are called Brown Plant Hoppers and they are rice pests. According to the HT story by Satyen Mohapatra, Delhi’s neighboring state Haryana just had its rice crop harvested. With no crops to feed on, the hoppers hopped onto the next wind toward Delhi and made their way into the markets, streets and people’s homes – struck the lights wherever they found them turned on and died down soon after from starvation. With a life span of about 30 days, these insects usually die by being eaten by their natural predators like frogs and spiders. But the use of insecticides by farmers had killed most of those natural predators and also rendered the hoppers immune to it.

The result: they multiplied like mad, had to flee to Delhi and in turn made millions even madder with irritation.

But the story doesn’t end here. When I did some Google searching on the Brown Plant Hopper, I came across an interesting story in the International Herald Tribune that relates, among other things, how crop research funds are being reduced in the face of a growing food and hunger crisis. Our little hoppies also find a mention in the story.

Didn’t someone say, it’s all connected together?