Letter from James Ivory, Mumbai, India, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1970 April : typescript signed.

Describing "a stupendous party" hosted by Jennifer Kendal and Shashi Kapoor and David Gladwell's and the makeup specialist's antics in particular; affirming that scene 2 is acceptable as shot, now that's he's seen it with sound; reflecting on what their disagreement over scene 2 says about the differences in their approach to films; telling her that "the Fate Machine exhausted us I think"; pushing back on some of her suggested changes to the recording studio scene ("We give the actors absolutely nothing of any interest, dramatic or otherwise, to do, and then on top of that you give these two protagonists nothing whatsoever to say"); criticizing his own attitude toward the people working at the hotel and even on the crew ("I show them no courtesy, I'm over-bearing, arrogant, vulgar, very, very coarse") and wondering why and how it has changed; reflecting on what it means that some people only felt comfortable approaching him for the first time while at the party and while drunk; comparing himself to a "sahib who climbs in a big American car at the end of the shooting every day and is driven off to the Taj Mahal"; wondering if he is serving as a father figure as well as a friend and mentor to Tom; disapproving of young people's strenuous efforts "to do the right, cool thing, never to do the wrong or clumsy, the un-cool thing", explaining that this attitude is something his peers had abandoned after their teenage years; telling her that a book of stories by Hemingway is not light enough for him to read at the moment; noting that he's sent a handwritten copy of a description of "The Bitch Goddess" on the book's back cover, which is enclosed.