Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to James Ivory, New York, New York, 1971 February 15 : autograph manuscript signed.

Describing in greater detail Merchant's phone call from the airport in Delhi, for which he masqueraded as the ambassador" from the "Min. of Ext. Affairs" [see MA 23840.916], and a later call from Bombay where she thought Merchant "was going to pull that Ext. Affairs stuff again" when the operator threatened to cut them off; noting that "so long was this call that not only did Jhab and I both talk to Ismail for ages but to Ismail's father too who invited us to the wedding [of one of Merchant's sisters]"; saying Merchant would be sending him a cable regarding the single required cut to "Bombay Talkie," and noting "he sounded so benign about you, I can't tell you"; noting that during her conversation with Merchant "I was actually seething-- not at him, but at some guests I had sitting downstairs"; going on to describe the visiting Hungarian economist and his wife, friends of Catherine Freeman's-- "oh God, he was making me so mad, saying what a wonderful new resurgent modern India it was, under the wonderful leadership of that wonderful brilliant woman [i.e. Indira Gandhi]"; going on to note some of the man's examples of modernity-- "all the New Delhi 'advanced' couples, all my bêtes noires, all the intellectual toads [...] my heart sank"; adding the man's excessive praise of Naipaul and simultaneous snubbing of her own work, "at the same time shovelling down vast quantities of our food [...] making Poji [Firoza] laugh no end"; noting she received a royalty check from Fox for $1.45 [see MA 23840.923a]-- "I'll send it for you to frame."