The Crow

I awakened at dawn with a bird singing outside my window, the bird in question is named the “Crow”. They are a breed of birds which are loud, noisy and a complete nuisance to mental peace, not to mention ugly to look at too.

In Bangladesh, I feel that crows could replace the “Doel” (Magpie Robbin) in being the national bird because there are so many of them around that it’s crazy. Our neighborhood hardly had any crows inhabiting it even five years ago. But today, I think I heard about a thousand of them happily “cawing” away to glory. Just like the traffic, even crows are becoming congested, denoting phenomenal growth in population with growing human habitats, terrible garbage management systems and clutter in the neighborhoods.

Crows have always intimidated me ever since I had watched Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” when I was 10yrs old. It wasn’t the first horror movie I have watched but it was unduly one of the scariest. I do not love watching horror movies in general simply because I prefer not wasting time and energy in putting myself through that ordeal. So, while my friends are welcome to squeal in glee while watching horror movies to satisfy their own masochistic pleasure I prefer happy feel good movies, drama, thrillers and comedy with happy endings.

"The Birds” was undoubtedly one of the greatest movies ever created. Major parts of the world still associate the crow with superstition. My mom used to think that if a crow caws right outside your window, it’s a death call. Scary, but if realistically viewed, the country is doomed if that was true. My friend Rica said that there were different cawing techniques of the crow which each might denote something different. Perhaps, if she is right, the first time I got a promotion can be associated with a crow cawing loudly directly over my head as I was walking through the gate with a pace of 1s of cawing interspaced with 2s interval. Calls described in the scientific literature can be explained only as a language of crows. But, how and when they got connected to human superstition is still a part of mythology.

The great majority of the world still believes in superstition. I myself believe in an existence beyond this one and of superstition but that’s not reason, it’s faith. Asians tend to be syncretism in their approach to change. Thus Taoism absorbs previous shamanistic beliefs; we should not be surprised to see that people now still believe in ghosts and spirits. I personally do not feel that it is a sign of mental backwardness, but rather evidence of the resiliency of a continuum of beliefs.

In modern life, some individuals, not otherwise involved in the practice of a tribal religion, have chosen to adopt a personal spirit animal helper which has some kind of special meaning to them and incorrectly call this a totem. Beliefs regarding these animal helpers can vary, from merely adopting one as a whim, to adopting an animal that a person sees representing favorable traits reflected in their own behavior or appearance, called a power animal by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies

According to that belief, a crow totem is supposedly an “Omen of Change”. It is stated that “Crows are messengers calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive in the world today and available to us”.

So shall I belief that totems really work just because a crow cawing has signified a promotion at work just once? For someone like me, here is something that’s far for scarier than having a crow cawing or watching a horror movie.

The media reports fueling superstition in South Korea where the free tabloid recently ran a story about three popular Korean celebrities who were filming a television show in Phuket, saying the stars reported hearing voices at their hotel that they believed were spirits.