Boobook sings Emily’s tune, not Shakespeare’s ‘songs of death’
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Saturday
January 28, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2023
Boobook sings Emily’s tune, not Shakespeare’s ‘songs of death’

Panorama

Enam Ul Haque
13 November, 2021, 11:35 am
Last modified: 13 November, 2021, 12:55 pm

Related News

  • The Wings of Vibrance: Dr. Alim's journey into the world of birds
  • Migratory Wryneck: ‘Must wander on through hopes and fears’ 
  • Woodswallow: ‘High and high, to thy banqueting-place in the sky’
  • Scarlet Minivet: Flies the colour of fidelity, not The Scarlet Letter  
  • Ephemeral: Grass blooms and urban munias in sprouting model towns

Boobook sings Emily’s tune, not Shakespeare’s ‘songs of death’

The big, forward-looking eyes on a flat and somewhat human-like face distinguish the owl from the other birds. No wonder the owl always fascinated and overawed the ancient humans

Enam Ul Haque
13 November, 2021, 11:35 am
Last modified: 13 November, 2021, 12:55 pm
Boobook looking back at a light. Photo: Enam Ul Haque
Boobook looking back at a light. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

On the very first night at our guesthouse in Bharaura village, two kilometres from Srimangal town, we were thrilled to hear the familiar tune: oo-uk, oo-uk, oo-uk... 

We have been hearing the same melodic tune on our every stay there for over 20 years. Over the years, Bharaura has changed quite a bit, not its nightly tune.

We knew that the tune was the yearning of a Brown Hawk Owl, better known as Brown Boobook. The thoughtful male owl was simply wishing his mate to know that he was sitting right there in the dark and thinking about her. Of all the owls of Bangladesh, Brown Boobook has the sweetest refrains.  

We guess the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson had heard the pleasing notes of the Northern Boobook many times at her home in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. In the following elegant lines, she expressed her wishes to hear the owl's soft song at midnight:   

I only ask a tune

At midnight – Let the owl select

His favourite refrain.

Boobook looking far into the night. Photo: Enam Ul Haque
Boobook looking far into the night. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

We, however, asked for more than the favourite refrain from our boobook. We wished to know the condition of his health. We switched on a torch to shine a little light on him. He was facing away from us. He looked back; his yellow eyes appeared large and disquieting in the torchlight.  

We switched our torch off. The boobook turned to face us. We shined the light on him again for a second to assess how the singer was doing health-wise. He ignored the offensive light and fearlessly looked far into the night. We were just happy to see a healthy and robust male with his faraway gaze.

The big, forward-looking eyes on a flat and somewhat human-like face distinguish the owl from the other birds. No wonder the owl always fascinated and overawed the ancient humans. Many ancient cultures greatly venerated the owl as a wise and benevolent creature, not one to abhor or be afraid of.  

In ancient Indian culture, the owl was associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. People continue to worship the owl with Lakshmi in modern India. The Mohave Indians of Arizona, on the other hand, believed that people become owls as they die, and the owls eventually turn into the whining prairie air.

Greek coin used for 500 years. Photo: Wikipedia
Greek coin used for 500 years. Photo: Wikipedia

The Brown Boobook left its low perch and disappeared into the thin air of Bharaura village. Soon we saw the silhouette of it flying over the stubble next to our guesthouse, probably to find a field rat, a gecko or a cricket and break its daylong fast. While not on the job of gracing the gods with its presence, an owl must find its own food.

The early Greeks associated the owl with their charming virgin goddess Athena. One side of their silver coin had the head of Athena and the other had the bold impression of an owl. That currency was widely used for five centuries, starting at 506 BCE.

But the popular adoration and respect for the owls were not to last forever. The owl became associated with witchcraft in the middle ages, first in Europe and then in the Americas. All sorts of people were accused of witchcraft, and the witches were thought to be able to turn themselves into owls, the dwellers of the darkness.

Countless people were charged with witchcraft, and some 50,000 people were burnt at the stake, hanged or beheaded in Europe from the middle of the 15th century onward. Owls, too, were destroyed wholesale since they could all be evil witches in disguise.

As the people's perception evolved, the poets and playwrights of Europe painted in forbidding dark ink the sinister and creepy spectre of the owl. The great Shakespeare was no exception - the owls, goblins and spirits crawled freely all over his plays.

Happy boobook at a daytime roost. Photo: Enam Ul Haque
Happy boobook at a daytime roost. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

To many a protagonist of Shakespeare, the unfortunate nocturnal bird was an 'evil sign', and the enemies were 'ominous and fearful owls of death.' A messenger delivering bad news from the battlefield was reviled by incensed Richard III with the following expletives:

Out on you, owls!

Nothing but songs of death?

Soon the Brown Boobook returned to the Mahogany grove by our guesthouse and resumed his soft song: oo-uk, oo-uk. We did not know if he had his breakfast in the short interval between the two bouts of songs. We surely knew that his tune was not a song of death; it could only be a refrain to please someone like Emily Dickinson!

By the end of the 18th century, the people's obsession with imagined witchcraft and the appalling persecution of perfectly innocent people and owls became the regrettable things of the past. In the next two centuries, the owl thankfully resumed its earlier position of popular awe and admiration in Europe and America.

We found our Brown Boobook on a high perch in a grove near our guesthouse the next day. The owl did not look too troubled to see us staring at him in broad daylight. He seemed to be used to seeing people and cattle of the village pass by his daytime roost often. In the Bharaura village, the owls were neither honoured nor persecuted.

The owls in Bangladesh have maintained a low profile and did not go through the great cycles of veneration and persecution the owls elsewhere had to experience over the aeons. Neither our owls showed up on the currency, nor got burnt at the stake with a bunch of witches.

An elderly person of the Bharaura village told us, "The hoots of an owl could be a good or bad omen. It all depends on the number of hoots. Is it odd or even! Odd is bad; even is good. But these days, brother, who has the time to count hoots!"

Enam Ul Haque. TBS Illustration.
Enam Ul Haque. TBS Illustration.

Features / Top News

Boobook / Birds

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • The Bombay blood type: A rare blood group in urgent need of database
    The Bombay blood type: A rare blood group in urgent need of database
  • Photo: TBS
    TBS Roundtable: What lies ahead in 2023
  • Photo: TBS
    BNP demands govt's immediate resignation as road march in Dhaka begins

MOST VIEWED

  • Now is the time to focus on FDI composition
    Now is the time to focus on FDI composition
  • Snipe in flight. Photo: Enam Ul Haque
    Baikka Beel: 'A world where snipe work late'
  • Island hopping in Bangladesh?
    Island hopping in Bangladesh?
  • Illustration: TBS
    HC verdict moves the needle on recognising single motherhood
  • According to the CAB president Ghulam Rahman, one of the most common complaints of consumers is being deceived by sellers when it comes to the weight of goods. Photo: TBS
    Has the Directorate improved consumer rights in Bangladesh?
  • A 2022 survey of 1,000 companies by professional services consultancy PwC found that between a sixth and a quarter had used AI in recruitment or employee retention in the past 12 months. Illustration: Bloomberg
    AI is coming to your workplace. Is the world ready?

Related News

  • The Wings of Vibrance: Dr. Alim's journey into the world of birds
  • Migratory Wryneck: ‘Must wander on through hopes and fears’ 
  • Woodswallow: ‘High and high, to thy banqueting-place in the sky’
  • Scarlet Minivet: Flies the colour of fidelity, not The Scarlet Letter  
  • Ephemeral: Grass blooms and urban munias in sprouting model towns

Features

Snipe in flight. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

Baikka Beel: 'A world where snipe work late'

40m | Panorama
Photo: Noor-A-Alam

Pet cafes: Where love for food and animals cohabit

2h | Food
Illustration: TBS

How MFS is turbocharging national economy

5h | Thoughts
Now is the time to focus on FDI composition

Now is the time to focus on FDI composition

7h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Gold covered mummy discovered in Egypt

Gold covered mummy discovered in Egypt

10m | TBS World
Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

1d | TBS Stories
Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

1d | TBS Stories
Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

18h | TBS SPORTS

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 
Bangladesh

Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 

3
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

4
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

5
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]