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Bhojpuri music is often dismissed as vulgar, low or sensational, existing discussions have rarely examined how various figures and images function to express, displace and sublimate psycho-sexual desires. For instance in many songs, the image of “Bhauji” is presented not merely as a family member but as an object of teasing, fantasy, and attraction, occupying a position between familiarity and prohibition. The paper addresses this gap by analysing how such figures allow socially restricted desires to find displaced expression.
Drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis, the study treats the lyrics of Bhojpuri songs as cultural texts through which unconscious and repressed desires are articulated. The analysis focuses on two interrelated dimensions. First, it examines the image of “Bhauji” as a sublimated sexual object whose liminal position within the familial structures enables the displacement of Oedipal desire. Second, it explores the repeated use of mouth-related imagery, such as kissing, tasting, and consumption, which Freud described as the oral stage of psychosexual development. These motifs are read as symbolic forms through which desire persists without direct genital union.
Methodologically, the paper undertakes a close textual analysis of selected lyrics of Bhojpuri songs, chosen for their recurrent use of kinship-based erotic figures and oral imagery. The paper argues that Bhojpuri songs function not simply as reflections of social relations but as sites where repression, displacement, and sublimation give form to unconscious fantasy within popular culture.
Jayant Kumar. “Singing The Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Look at Bhojpuri Music.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 3, June 2026, pp. 727-739. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n3.44.
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