Letter from James Ivory, Mumbai, India, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1968 April 19 : typescript signed.

Making observations on a recent six-minute telephone call with her; reporting on his impressions of the early stages of editing the "The Guru," with opinions and information from cinematographer Mitra, Michael York, and Rita Tushingham; relating how he recently spied a paperback copy of "The Householder" at Merchant's house in Bombay and reread it, and how much he still liked it and how good the dialogue is, then turning to the dialogue in "The Guru"; asserting that "no Bengali actor can ever do justice to your dialogue ... So when we come to use Soumitra Chatterji, if we do, I think we should give him absolutely straight lines, and let his accent color them. North Indian idiom will bring him to grief"; telling her he has agreed to go to see "an amateur theatrical" produced by Pearl Padamsee starring a young actor that Madhur has recommended; referring to an incident where "they stopped Shakespeare Wallah" in the Lotus Cinema while Pinchoo Kapoor was present, and upon discovering that the demonstrators were movie people (his potential employers), joined in; describing a phone call he received from Leela Naidu, asking for his help in getting work.