Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to Ismail Merchant, New York, New York, [1965] October 15 : autograph manuscript signed.

Offering encouragement and advice on how to approach the search for a distrbutor or distrbutors for "Shakespeare Wallah," especially in light of their previous experience with "The Householder"; saying she is offering all this advice because "I'm frightened of your enormous optimism and frightened that you'll get hurt & disillusioned by too many no's, too many disappointments"; realizing as she writes that "that's silly, & I know that by now you've amply proved you won't [become disillusioned], & that you have in fact already grown that skin of cynicism which I was always wishing on you"; telling Merchant about the festival of Satyajit Ray films presently happening in Delhi, which has had a better turnout than previous ones, which Ruth takes to be a good sign for both Ray and Indian filmmaking in general; mentioning a news piece in the Times of India about the three Indian films chosen for the London Film Festival-- "Shakespeare Wallah," Satyajit Ray's "Kapurush-o-Mahapaurush," and "a 3rd, by Tapan Sinha called-- I've forgotten what" ["Arohi," dir. Tapan Sinha (1965)]; saying she "read an account of the Venice Film Festival" which sounded worse than Berlin; asking Merchant to take her mother and brother to "Shakespeare Wallah" when it plays in London, and to help Foo (Felicity Kendal) out.