Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 January 26 : typescript manuscript.

Noting that life is moving fast; saying it's been two years since they began work on "Bombay Talkie," five years since "Shakespeare Wallah" premiered in New York, and ten since he began thinking about casting Saeed and Madhur Jaffrey in what would become "Shakespeare Wallah"; continuing that he has known Ismail now for ten years, and that it's been ten years since he first met Jhabvala and her husband at their New Year's Eve party; continuing to reflect on many other formative career moments; ending this list with "and now it is 1971 and I am 42"; mentioning that Ismail is going to India for a wedding, and that he will send more clothes for Jhab with him along with records for Ava and Poji and a few books for her; requesting that she send a few records from India in exchange, hopefully with Ismail, but also by mail if he overstays; agreeing that both of their tastes in film seem out of touch with the critics around them; using François Truffaut's "The Wild Child" as an example of this, and elaborating that he thought it was one of the best films of the year, but that it only received mention in the New York Times and was snubbed by every other major film reviewing entity; listing the many other films he thought worth seeing for the year 1970, and speculating about which of them will make it to Indian distribution; closing with thoughts about a particularly poorly dubbed screening of Truffaut's "Mississippi Mermaid" he attended; expressing gratitute that "we've never had our films messed around with and dubbed, though I believe that Guru has been put into German now."