Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, New York, New York, 1967 May 4: autograph manuscript signed.

Asking if they have heard that Jennifer is pregnant, and assuming that it will delay production of the Ustad film ["The Guru"]; ask whether they want her to write a synopsis of the Ustad film for fundraising purposes; agreeing with Ivory that, again for fundraising purposes, a synopsis will not be enough for the "Shakespeare Wallah" sequel, but insisting that it should be enough to generate some money for further development; relating the experience of Vidia Naipaul, where he refused to turn over a script he was hired to write until he was paid in full; admonishing them not to "let on that our script is fairly well advanced," despite the fact that "I'm longing to finish it off"; saying that she passed the Liberty Cinema recently and its renovations have left it in a shambles, "so don't let Prabhu think of putting ["Shakespeare Wallah"] on there till November"; relating news from Madhur that "Shakespeare Wallah" has "shocked" Bombay film circles-- "It has all the ingredients of bilkul phlop [i.e., a total flop] & they're very indignant that it isn't"; admitting "I was sort of pleased by it getting banned in S. Africa"; telling them Madhur is leaving for New York on the 17th, via London-- "say quickly if you want anything from here"; discussing collecting nine or ten of her short stories into a volume called "Europeans in India" or "Strangers in India" [probably the 1969 publication "A Stronger Climate"]; thinking about the male lead in the sequel wearing glasses, and noting that "Madhur thinks James Fox isn't a very good actor, & I somehow feel that actors know about each other. But don't let's worry about that now."