Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 May 24 : carbon copy typescript.

Picking up from his previous letter [see MA 23840.854], discussing the contents of the Vanderlip wedding guest list that they found in the matriarch's bedroom, and how, in addition to "the usual Rockefellers and Goulds," the ancestors of a number of cast and crew members were apparently in attendance; noting that "people have been experiencing a very strong sense of deja-vu," even Merchant; noting that Merchant has "been quite even-tempered, hasn't shouted at me once," and that "our roles have reversed somehow. He is now the charming foreigner who people would, on the whole, like to please, as I've been in India [...] and I'm the insider"; noting that Merchant tore a ligament recently and his "stumping about, at first with a cane" makes him seem even more "touching," and the "only real shouting has been done by Walter Lassally" at crew who make noise during rehearsal; admitting that "MIP's organisation [sic]" has not really improved, and enumerating some of the problems they've had; noting that their production manager is often stymied in his efforts by the A.D. and Merchant; describing the actors' discomfort with nudity and the mud they were required to be coated in, and their eagerness to be clothed again and to speak; noting the house's similarity to "the sort of place F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about and set his scenes in," and to "the kind of house that my father, as a young man [...] would have dreamed of being invited to"; observing that, in spite of the eccentricities of the the setting, he is "having quite a fine time" and wearing "a kurta under [my shirt]"; saying that Merchant is "unperturbed" by the reviews from Delhi of "Bombay Talkie," and asserting that "Everything [the Indian critics] say against us reaffirms the accuracy of our observations of them, and thus their hysteria."