Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, [between 1965 December 20 and 24] : typescript signed.

Voicing his happiness and relief that Ruth likes his idea for a film about an Indian musician; laying out in detail why he sees Dilip Kumar as the idea actor to play the main character in this story inspired particularly by Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar, among others; listing other actors on his list: Madhur, Utpal Dutt, Sharmilla Tagore, James Fox, Tom Courtenay; describing other possible plot details; asking Ruth to think about it; saying that for Fox, "Esmond in India" is out, as they already have another "Indian film" in development-- "The Nine Tiger Man" with George Cukor (which was never made)-- "a stupid thing" in Ivory's opinion-- but Merchant will pursue the idea with British Lion; asking again about Pinter, and musing about the most diplomatic way to get out of working with him; discussing possible casting for "Esmond in India"-- Durga Khote, Waheeda Rehman, Prayag Raj, Zohra Sehgal, but not Harindranath Chattopadhyay-- "he's mad, and not very good"; closing as "I've been invited to one of the Budis' for dinner"; reminding her to write to him in California; long postscript about "Kanchenjunga" and the Maestro (Satyajit Ray), and suddenly realizing how much it influenced "Shakespeare Wallah"; a handwritten postscript about how the budi that invited him to dinner "wasn't all that nice" and Faie brought "that stupid boyfriend of hers."