Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 May 23 : carbon copy typescript.

Thanking her for all her letters and apologizing for not writing until now, "but you know the reasons why"; telling her he's writing from New York City, during a brief weekend visit back from the set; noting that it feels "odd" being back, that "real" is now "that house and the motel we're staying in and the roadhouses run by the Mafia where we eat at night"; observing that they have "bitten off more than we can chew" in terms of scheduling and he anticipates that soon they will be working very long hours and tempers will begin to flare, but "You can't imagine what it's like to make a film with a pleasant [underlined] cameraman"; describing how the youthful crew respect Lassally, and enumerating the differences between them and the Indian crews he's used up until now; describing how some crew members have dropped away, like one who was "too much of a kind of flower child," and adding that the actors are "a race of giants, huge and blond they are, and I can't get used to such big blond people after India"; comparing some of the fussier cast members to Leela Naidu; telling her he is, so far, very happy with the rushes; describing the house they're shooting in-- "so extraordinary. It's like those Rajastani [sic] palaces-- a vast, well-built hulk full of the paraphernalia of a powerful family which has decayed or has turned its interests elsewhere"; comparing the grandfather of the current owner as "a very great deal like that old Maharaja of Bikaner" and tracing the history of the family; noting that the house is "still largely furnished" and that "the attics are treasure-houses of props and costumes" for their production to make use of; describing "the bedroom of the old lady" and how they have used (and damaged) it; saying "I could go on for pages about shooting in Mrs. Frank Vanderlip's bedroom" and continuing onto a second letter.