ABSTRACT
The emergent technologies of mass communication have a significant bearing on the newfound visibility of Bhojpuri, both in the Bhojpuri-speaking regions as well as at the national level. This resurgence of the vernacular, as Avijit Ghosh and Ratnakar Tripathy have demonstrated in their judicious assessments of the economy of Bhojpuri leisure, is driven by the lower classes and fuelled by labour remittance of the migrants. The economic dividends of labour migration, together with liberalisation of the Indian economy, created a buffer of sorts that emboldened the historically impoverished Bhojpuri speakers to spend a little on entertainment. To the majority of Indians, as also to a sizeable section of Bhojpuri speakers, the idea of popular leisure in Bhojpuri corroborates with their customary notions of crass, vulgar and obscene. Further, if features of the hegemon have their own allure and trigger instant mimicry, aspects of a subjugated life invite ready ridicule and derision.
