Letter from Ismail Merchant, Delhi, India, to James Ivory, New York, New York, [1964] March 25 : autograph manuscript signed.

Acknowledging receipt of a "long cable" from Ivory, to which he has replied; summarizing the situation with Columbia in light of the Indian government's willingness to waive the quota for "The Householder"; telling Ivory to meet with Columbia in New York and get written confirmation from them; apologizing for a previous unkind letter; saying "I saw you in my dream"; observing that "Ruth and Jhab have taken MIP as their own. I think in this world it is very rare to come across people like Ruth & Jhab ... right from the beginning they have been with us"; despairing a little that Ivory is planning to work on the script with Ruth in June, which means that cannot begin shooting until at least July; fretting over the amount of time that will have passed between films for them; concerned that they cannot pay Saeed or Madhur more than Rs. 5000 for the next film ["Shakespeare Wallah"], and only pay for one-way ocean passage to India; saying the budget for a black-and-white shoot would be 2 lakhs, with Ruth and Shashi as 10% producers.