Is Kaiser Haque’s civil romance a romance or satire?
A bureaucracy typically refers to an organization that is complex with multilayered systems and processes. These systems and procedures are designed to maintain uniformity and control within an organization. A bureaucracy describes the established methods in large organizations or governments.
Red tape is an idiom referring to regulations or conformity to formal rules or standards which are claimed to be excessive, rigid or redundant, or to bureaucracy claimed to hinder or prevent action or decision-making. It is usually applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations.
Kaiser Haq is a post-colonial modern writer and poet who widely used the literary technique of satire in a witty manner in his poetry to criticize the contemporary society. He attacks the convention of contemporary society and reveal the superficiality of them and shows that they have some faults and moral lacking as well though the usages of satire in his poems.
His poem " civil service Romance" is a direct satire on the civil service of our country. In our country people who are doing government jobs they are not loyal towards their job. They does not show any seriousness and responsibility toward their work. Through the poem " civil service romance " Kaiser Haq satirises the system of our government officials where people are keen on dealing with unnecessary things and how ridiculously they ignore the urgent files. In this poem we find that an officer is quite busy for making love with a new beautiful lady employee. He does not care the emergency file, what he care is only making romance with a new joined lady employee. Thus, portraying this love making incidents in a sarcastic manner, Haiser Haq mock the political system of our government’s jobs where employees show no morality or duty towards their job. Throughout this poem he mocks the traditional concept of our civil service where people are corrupted both morally and ethically.
The poet is said to a real ‘ambassador of Bangladeshi culture’ who proudly reveals his origin and rationally tries to brand his country. Through a note of irony in 'Civil Service Romance, Haq portrays bureaucratic irregularities of the civil service in Bangladesh. He mocks the Babu English by deliberately mimicking the style used in letters of application to the English Sahibs or Masters.
The poem starts with:
Subject: Improvement of Bilateral Ties
Dear Miss:
With due respect and humble submission
I beg to welcome you to neighboring section.
The title of the poem mentions a 'romance' that occasionally flowers in a work place. When in a government office, a male employee and a female employee are engaged in discussing family particulars, sharing likes and dislikes, making jokes (or love!) and improving all-round bilateral ties, the most URGENT file is kept pending as per rule of the red-tape culture. Haq then speaks about another embarrassing aspect of the civil service-the buttering or oiling of the bosses (the neo-imperialists). Which guarantees promotions and other benefits. These are some phenomena in a postcolonial civil service world coming down from the colonial political culture. The limitless power of the government officials is still seen in the civil service; the officers are more or less like Sahibs or Babus.
So we could say that the poem "Civil Service Romance" as a satire to bureaucracy and red tapism of postcolonial Bangladesh.
