Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 February 22 : typescript manuscript.

Expressing relief that Jhabvala likes the Holly Woodlawn idea ("Savages"); describing that the idea feels unrealized, and that has to do with Ismail remaining in India because "when he's off the scene very little happens and it's all just a kind of holding operation until he gets back [...] I don't know why this should be so, but it is"; discussing that he is running out of money, and how Joe Saleh claims to not have any more money to pay him; continuing to say that this, combined with the $1,800 put towards the documentary project ("Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of Civilization"), makes it difficult to stay afloat; complaining that Ismail assumes there is money to be made through his father's estate, but that in reality there isn't; narrating a scene that took place on the subway earlier that day, which featured a man who dug a book out of a trashcan and left it on the seat of the train; saying that he became convinced "that the book was a bomb"; writing that he ascertained it was not a bomb, and was actually a collection of Rudyard Kipling stories; mentioning that he missed his stop because of the musings this revelation inspired; finishing the story by saying "the book was carried away in the dark subway train down the dark tunnel to I don't know what sort of fate. Isn't that strange?"; discussing a film festival of D.W. Griffith's early films in New York, and how he has tried to attend all screenings; observing "Griffith invented just about everyting that we use in films today, and in fifty years there hasn't been any great improvement in basic technique, its editing, for instance, or the kind of shots you take"; concluding with news that he selected Mozart's variations of "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" ("Ah! vous dirai-je, maman") for the Chaudhuri film, and that "it's quite appropriate too, if you think about it, that little star twinkling in the dark Indian night."