NEW DELHI: They have been disliked and despised by humans since ages. But today, they are being “liked” and “followed” like never before. Well, you guessed it right! We are talking about cockroaches – which have today become the talk of the town in their new “online avatar”. The six-legged creatures – that have survived our hate for years – would never have imagined, even in their wildest dreams, that one day they would become the centre of a human movement with many people saying “Main bhi cockroach.”One controversial comparison was all it took for the cockroaches to find their moment of glory in what has till now been a despicable existence among humans. Organic growth or manufactured support, genuine popularity or enemy-driven anti-India agenda – the debate over the online rage will continue but the fact remains that cockroaches have indeed taken the centre stage of our political discourse for now.
Planet’s greatest survivors?
Cockroaches have already conquered the planet – quietly. patiently. Mostly from under your sink.Long before human beings invented democracy, taxation, unemployment, LinkedIn profiles and motivational reels about “grinding”, the cockroach was already here — calmly surviving floods, meteors and even volcanic eruptions.
The cockroach survival manual
Not merely an insect
Scientists estimate that roach-like ancestors existed more than 300 million years ago. Dinosaurs came much later. Which means that if Earth were a family drama, cockroaches would be the ancient grandfather while humanity is the overconfident grandson who arrived in episode 4 and thinks the house belongs to him.Dinosaurs vanished. Cockroaches stayed. Volcanoes erupted. Cockroaches stayed. Empires collapsed. Cockroaches continued eating cardboard in a dark corner.In fact, the cockroach has mastered the single greatest skill in history: being underestimated.We look at lions and think ‘king of the jungle’. We look at sharks and think ‘ultimate predator’. But if survival alone determined greatness, the cockroach would be the undisputed emperor of evolution, wearing a tiny crown made of kitchen crumbs.
Roach sako toh roach lo: Cockroaches are winning the survival game (AI photo by ChatGPT)
Did you know?
A cockroach can survive for weeks without food. It can flatten its body into impossible crevices. Some species can hold their breath for nearly 40 minutes. They can withstand radiation levels far higher than humans can tolerate. There are even experiments showing cockroaches can continue functioning briefly without their heads because their nervous systems are distributed differently from ours.Even biologically, cockroaches are engineering marvels. Their exoskeletons protect them while remaining flexible. Their sensory systems detect movement and vibration rapidly enough to escape most attacks. Their reproductive efficiency borders on administrative excellence.Which is ironic, because many humans with full heads contribute far less to society than a headless cockroach navigating a drainpipe with purpose and ambition.
The Cockroach CV
Universally hated
And yet, despite all this resilience, the cockroach remains universally hated. Nobody has ever seen a cockroach and reacted with spiritual serenity. Butterflies inspire poetry. Fireflies inspire wonder. Cockroaches inspire Olympic-level jumping ability in fully grown adults.The injustice is extraordinary.A peacock does nothing except pose dramatically in gardens, yet it becomes a national bird. The cockroach survives five mass extinction events and all it gets is a slipper thrown at its face.Does humanity resent competence?There is also something deeply unsettling about the cockroach’s timing. A cockroach never appears when there is light around your life. It emerges precisely when there is darkness, after you have turned off the kitchen light and begun questioning your life choices. Suddenly tiny antennae point out with ancient eyes carrying the confidence of a creature that watched continents separate.The cockroach does not panic because the cockroach knows something humans do not: it will probably outlive them.
The final metamorphoses, through Kafka ‘s lens
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is perhaps the most famous insect-related work in modern literature.Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a monstrous insect. Popular imagination often turns him into a cockroach, though Kafka never precisely names the species. The transformation horrifies his family not merely because of appearance, but because Gregor stops functioning economically. He becomes unproductive, useless and a burden. His inability to contribute financially transforms him from beloved son into household liability.Kafka understood something terrifying about modern society: people are often valued less as human beings and more as economic machinery.But real cockroaches would probably find Gregor embarrassing.Because actual cockroaches are astonishingly productive survivors. They are scavengers, recyclers, decomposers and elite-level adaptation experts. They do not sit around contemplating existential despair in rented apartments. They move. They persist. They hustle.If Kafka’s insect symbolised alienation, the real cockroach symbolises continuity.
Mascot of endurance
We build glass towers, hold conferences about innovation and create passwords containing special characters. The cockroach watches all this with the weary patience of an old landlord who has seen tenants come and go for centuries.Even our wars barely inconvenience them.During World War II bombings, cockroaches survived shattered cities. In nuclear disaster discussions, people often joke that only cockroaches would survive the apocalypse. While science suggests some insects are even more radiation-resistant, the cockroach has become the mascot of post-apocalyptic endurance.Oceans may rise, volcanoes may erupt, billionaires may flee, wars may be fought, cities may go silent but then somewhere beneath the rubble of a luxury apartment, a roach calmly discovers half a biscuit.Life continues.
Cockroach is a survivor despite the way it is treated.
Fifth pillar of democracy
There is almost something democratic about cockroaches. They do not discriminate. Rich house, poor house, five-star hotel, government office, student hostel — all are equally worthy of visitation.The cockroach believes firmly in universal access.And unlike humans, cockroaches do not waste time creating motivational philosophies. No cockroach has ever posted: “Rise and grind.” No cockroach has launched a podcast about peak performance. Yet every night, without fail, they emerge with discipline sharper than corporate ambition.Imagine the confidence required to survive humanity’s hatred for millions of years.Entire industries exist solely to eliminate them. Sprays, traps, powders, gels, ultrasonic devices, herbal remedies recommended by aunties on WhatsApp — the war against cockroaches is one of the longest-running military campaigns in human history.The cockroach remains undefeated.We have reached an uneasy geopolitical arrangement with the roach population: we occupy the visible spaces; they inherit the hidden ones.And perhaps that is why the cockroach fascinates us. It exposes human arrogance.We imagine ourselves as masters of Earth because we build skyscrapers and launch rockets. But survival is a different metric altogether. The cockroach requires no stock market, no political system, no smartphone battery and no wellness retreat. It simply adapts.Humans, meanwhile, suffer emotional collapse when Wi-Fi disappears for 6-7 minutes.If evolution were a competitive exam, the cockroach would top the rankings while humanity argued about reservation policies outside the examination centre.Of course, none of this means people must suddenly love cockroaches. Admiration and affection are separate things. One may respect the tiger and still prefer not to share a bathroom with it.The problem is not that cockroaches exist. The problem is that they appear too confidently. A mosquito at least behaves like a criminal — sneaky, nervous, apologetic. The cockroach behaves like property management.It strolls across the wall as though conducting inspection rounds.And yet, buried beneath the disgust, there is reluctant respect. Because deep down humanity recognises resilience when it sees it. The cockroach is the embodiment of survival stripped of glamour. No elegance. No mythology. No cinematic soundtrack. Just stubborn continuity.Perhaps that is the true reason the insect unsettles us.Cockroaches force humans to confront an uncomfortable possibility: nature does not reward beauty, intelligence or sophistication nearly as much as it rewards adaptability.The cockroach adapted while humans only gave speeches about adaptation. And in that difference lies millions of years of evolutionary success. But only one of them belongs to a lineage ancient enough to remember a world before dinosaurs.