The World Cup cicada: India’s rare insect on a four-year clock

Every four years, much of the world turns its attention to World Cup football.

In Saiden, a village tucked into the hills of Meghalaya in northeastern India, another spectacle is under way.

Villagers watch for gathering rain clouds, the first break in the summer heat, and the moment the forest floor yields beneath their feet. Then, almost overnight, the silence lifts and the forest begins to sing.

Millions of niangtaser cicadas emerge from the ground after spending four years underground, transforming the village for a few brief weeks from May into June.

"Every four years the World Cup comes and so does the niangtaser," says Evansis Jones Myrthong, the broad-shouldered village chief in his mid-forties. "For us, they are the same calendar."

As a teenager, Evansis spent evenings collecting cicadas before hurrying to the village school building, where Saiden's only television - a government-issued black-and-white set - showed live World Cup matches late into the night.

"The school building would be packed," he recalls. "We would keep the niangtaser at home and go straight there to watch until two or three in the morning."

He still remembers the players more clearly than the years: Roberto Baggio, Romario, Bebeto, Batistuta. Most people in the village supported Italy.