Monday | 13 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 13 January 2025 | Epaper

Silencing cries of foxes on wintry nights

Published : Sunday, 20 November, 2016 at 12:00 AM  Count : 434
Mahbubar Rahman
Notwithstanding the fact that howling of the foxes seems to be an object of fantasy to the new generation of the mainstream population of Bangladesh living in the concrete jungle of urban areas, yet there is hardly any elderly person of 50 years plus in Bangladesh who have not heard the howling of foxes either distantly or from close proximity in myriad silence of the night. Howling of foxes in foggy winter night appears much amusing and takes the elderly persons back to the world of by-gone days engrossed with high nostalgia. Lilting laughter alike howling of the foxes in group sometimes appears frightening and induces the mothers of rural Bangladesh to find a pretext to make their crying babies fallen quickly asleep.
With a zoological name Canes Vales, fox is a carnivores quadruped with elongated muzzle, long bushy tail and red fur preserved in England and elsewhere as beast of chase and proverbial for cunning; crafty person. Until recently fox-hunting was a popular game in England, now stands disband under long persuasion and pressure of the animal right activists. With a herd of barking dogs and hounds, fox hunters on horse-back used to chase and shoot the running foxes with displaying wanton cruelty toward getting a kind of sadistic pleasure in the name of game. England had a long legacy of fox-hunting --- a game that was of great likings of the royals and aristocrats in the society. It took long years in England to disband this game of spiteful cruelty to animals. As a game, fox-hunting was not popular in this part of the world including Bangladesh. But fox-chasing in an isolated case was in practice for some reasons or others. Foxes usually live on pests, rodents, small birds and animals in nature. For bringing a pleasant change in their culinary habit, sometimes they are slipped into the human habitation and indulge in stealing the fowls & chickens and even in some cases goats from the house-hold live stock of the villagers and consequently get chased and killed. Foxes usually live in group in holes in a bushy area. Howling of the foxes in group is usually heard in winter time. Howling starts briefly at dusk and before the break of dawn and sustains not for a long time. Severity of chilly winter night also makes foxes howl with frequent intervals. Howling of foxes is much pleasant to those who have had their early pleasant days in the sublime-beauty of rural Bangladesh where howling of foxes and euphonious chirping of birds were the common features of a happy and blissful life.
A 15th century Florentine political philosopher---Machiavelli suggested a king or a ruler to be as brave as lion and as cunning as fox. Any political means according to Machiavelli, whatever unscrupulous, are justifiable if they strengthen the power of the state. In the North African theatre of the World War - II, General Irwin Rommel of Germany was regarded as 'desert fox' for his bravery, courage, wit and sharpness in the battle field.
For their cunningness, foxes are often characterized as the Shiyal Pandit in tales and fables. They are often portrayed, out of imagination, as a wise man with a funny spectacle affixed on their noses. There are many tales and stories narrating the wisdom of the foxes in their Pathshala (Village School) where cubs and kids of other animals in the jungle used to visit to take lesson from Shiyal Pandit---metaphorically a man of wisdom.
An episode narrating about the academic ambience of the Pathshala of Shiyal Pandit writes: how a gullible crocodile who assigned his all nine children to the Pathshala of Shiyal Pandit was befooled and lost his all children; who were all devoured by Shiyal Pandit one after another with cunningly showing the foolish crocodile his one child for nine time over the days and finally devoured the last one and ran away with closing the Pathshala for good. The story has its allegorical significance and finds some links and relevance with some unscrupulous modern day coaching centers and schools who fleece the guardians with sharp knife and cunningly bunk-off at the end of the day leaving the students and the parents in great perils.
Cunningness of carnivores' quadruped foxes as portrayed in tales and fables obviously gives rise to profound laughter, without causing any harm to human being. But the question arises about the omnivores biped 'foxes' who are in hiding in the garb of human being continuously harming their fellow citizens by cheat, fraud, lies, killing, arson and looting and with hundreds of other such vile tactics, and cunningness. In isolated cases, quadruped foxes in the jungle steal fowls & chickens only to contain their hunger and get chased and mercilessly bitten to death by angry humans. Contrary to that in many cases, omnivores' bipeds in human shape living in shinning towers suck the blood of fellow human being and go escort-free in the society without being chased and punished. It is heartening to note that fox-hunting is now banned by law. Beyond my wildest imagination I wish I could see omnivores' biped fox-hunting is commenced world-wide in large scale to the greater interest of the human race who constantly fall victim of the sharp nails and claws of the 'foxes' in human shape. Till such time a utopian world exists in reality which is very unlikely to be shaped against the waves, in foreseeable future, with contemporary social and political bigotry; apparently I wish to fall back and remain contented with the howling of quadruped foxes in nature around me at my present retreat closer to a pinch of jungle-laden hills where I have landed having been bundled off from the concrete jungle of Dhaka having lived there for long. In my happy hour at night amidst the musical sound of crickets and croaks of frogs, I wish to relish the howling of foxes pouring in, intermittently into my ears and share it with my grandsons amid their giggles and laughter of unmitigated jubilation. A nearby hillock survived from being cut and reduced to the ground, standing like an oasis in the desert; where the foxes used to howl in chorus even at the setting of winter last year, has been a ground in solitude to fall back upon and mull over the by-gone golden day lost in the mist of time.
With winter slowly setting in, beauty of nature is now in slow transformation with shinning dew-drops being mounted in the tip of green tender grasses in morning haze and covering the gentle and caring face of nature with a shroud of thick fogs as the night fall; it is desired that the foxes come out from their holes and howl in chorus to welcome wintry night and contain the mind, longing for such music of night in nature. Alas! the longing for savoring the music of howling in my neighborhood as referred is not going to be fulfilled this season, as because of not the fact that the foxes have turned their faces and stopped singing for the pleasure of humans, but because they have been chased away from their little world by a gang of bipeds, disillusioned in macabre pleasure, for whom the howling of foxes and warbles of avian make no sense and nothing but noises and some sonic menace reaching the cavity of their deaf ears. To make sure that the foxes do not return to their abode for howling any more, these humans of vacuous mind mowed and destroyed all the greeneries of herbs and shrubs grown and stood on hillocks thus turning the hillocks hideously bald and arid.
Mushroom growth of towers and apartments made of concretes and steels in the surroundings and the movements of mechanized wheeled monsters billowing smokes and creating sonic hazard to devour the tranquilly of nature is nevertheless much disturbing to those who wish to get back nature with fauna and flora in abundance toward seeking peace and serenity in life even in the urban areas. Against desired 25 per cent of the total land mass of the country, Bangladesh possesses alarmingly only 7 per cent of the forest which is much inadequate for humans health and living. Besides, the proportion of water bodies is diminishing day by day due to land grabbers' unending lusts and greed thereby exposing threat to maintain a sound ecological balance in the country. Awareness must be created so that the proportion of forests and water bodies is not reduced further by the reckless and suicidal behaviour of people with skyrocketing ugly ambition. Foxes and other animals cry in nature, perhaps to ring a warning bell to humans for their (humans) safety with breathing fresh air for living.
Humans' wanton cruelty and insanity has silenced the music of foxes' howling in my so-called posh neighbourhood where humdrums of life only remain abuzz. With foxes might have taken refuse in the distant wilderness, their cries in the wintry mid-night have also been lost and taken refuse in the deep core of my imagination that now I am left with often to ruminate over, in my savouring solitude.r
Mahbubar Rahman is a former civil servant


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