Contracts of making viewing and listening

Contracts of making, viewing, and listening is an artistic intervention into Satyajit Ray’s Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder), made in 1973; the film tells the story of the effects of famine in rural Bengal through the eyes of a Brahmin couple. In Ray’s Ashani Sanket, the only Dalit woman the audience meets is Moti, who appears in brief spurts to highlight the humanity of the Brahmin protagonists and to testify to the restrictions of caste that these protagonists are meant to transgress by way of consummating their humanity. Moti is accorded only a fraction of the film's screen time and spoken parts, and is promptly relegated to the background once her narrative purpose is met. The artistic intervention is geared towards critically reading the film through the lens of Dalit consciousness, and exploring ways of writing that critique in and through the language of the film itself.