Bugged Enough

An encounter with a spider a while ago brought back a plethora of memories which "bugged" me enough to want to make tiny celebrities out of each one of them.

I'll start with the Lady Bird. Pretty with all those patterns on her back and those colorful hues making a fashion statement in the bug world.Green,red,yellow,black and orange little lives were abundant in any garden in the neighbourhood I grew up in.Terrified as I used to be and still am of insects, this is where the exception lies.Too delightul to resist! I loved watching her run  from the tip of my fingers down my palm before placing her back on  any one of the many lush plants around.

The fascination with Glow Worms was an integral part of my days as a kid. With all the glow worm toy sets I was gifted, the interset did not fade for a very long time.Chasing them at night, following their illuminance and trying hard to figure out exactly where they lived was more of an impossible task than a favourite activity. The best memories and also the most cherished in this category are those nights when a couple or more would stray into my room and invigorate my imaginative mind.

The squishy, sluggish and ubiquitous Caterpillar! To me all centipedes, millipedes and the like fall into this category. "Aguni Bichha" in Bengali loosely translates to Fire Insect.Striking orange, firey red and bright yellow ones announced their presence eveyday. I have  frequently felt the "fire" in them (this happens when they decide to contact you and their stealth at doing so is remarkable) as have all my cousins and most of my friends from the area around.Lime (Choona) still is the favourite remedy to soothe the burning skin. Incredible how metamorphosis turns them into such beautiful and harmless butterflies!

The industrious Ant. They come in many varieties and the black ones dominated our abode-inside and out. It was difficult to miss their disciplined efforts demonstrated on trees, bathroom walls, kitchen floors and literally all around. As minute as they are the ant hills are extremely fun to witness especially the build up stage of it as are the laboured strides each individual takes with a load of winter food on it's back.We all have at one time or another observed and acknowledged their "conversations".

Spiders with their humungous to tiny sizes and the characteristic web of each type, dragonflies, moths fluttering around bulbs and lit up candles,snails leaving an identifiable mucus trail and making incredibly slow progress, grass hoppers jumping about, stick insects I so often mistook to be twigs,earthworms populating the mud and crickets infesting the night air with their noisy chatter.

The sights and the sounds.A part of many of our lives they are, more than we give them credit for.