BIB_ID
448867
Accession number
MA 23840.215
Creator
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, 1927-2013, sender.
Display Date
Delhi, India, 1965 February 19
Credit line
Gift of James Ivory, 2022.
Description
1 item (8 pages) ; 22.5 x 19.4 cm
Notes
Year from date on letterhead and James Ivory's notes..
Written on letterhead from the India International Centre Seminar on Architecture, February 1965.
Written on letterhead from the India International Centre Seminar on Architecture, February 1965.
Provenance
James Ivory.
Summary
Saying she tried to call Ivory the day before yesterday but he wasn't in; saying Jhab is at "the architects' seminar" and passing on some anecdotes about the attendees; relating how Kushwant Singh called her yesterday to gleefully read her a bad review of "The Guide" in Time magazine, as he "can't stand" R.K. Narayan, who wrote the source material, and the writer-director team of Pearl Buck and Tad Danielewski (U.S. version) had first approached him to adapt one of his books; adding that Singh is on his way to Rochester, NY, to lecture on the Sikh community; telling Ivory she had a "wonderful letter" from a Fulbright scholar in Gujerat, who wants to visit India's English-language authors; describing a visit from a sociologist from Minnesota who is "appalled" by the state of Indian sociology and keen to improve it; enclosing an article by Nirad Chauduri which she loves, and relating how V.S. Naipaul has recently written a piece praising Chauduri's book, and while Chauduri was very pleased, he'd previously refused to meet Naipaul, calling his work "shallow tittle-tattle"; thanking Ivory for sending some photos of her and her daughters, and for some chocolates he sent via Madhur; saying Madhur is "rather miserable just now" in Delhi with no one to talk to except her family, and asking if Ivory could find her some work in Bombay; asking if Merchant got Catherine's letter, which she had forwarded; saying she did get his express letter about the Tony-Lizzie scene for the reshoots, but it came two weeks late-- she suspects "the person" Ivory entrusted with sending it [perhaps Merchant?] didn't want the scene shot and delayed it intentionally; noting "I always seen to have so much to tell you," and whenever something interesting happens, she thinks "I must tell Jim"; mentioning a "fascinating" letter she received from their mutual friends Phil and Anne Bradley, describing their life in Grinnell, Iowa, where he teaches at Grinnell College, and going into great detail about its contents-- "It is good to have friends scattered over different parts of the world. One learns so much"; signing off with love to him and Merchant-- after he has sworn he didn't delay the letter.
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