Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to James Ivory, London, England, 1971 June 23 : autograph manuscript signed.

Telling Ivory that "Jhab's father died yesterday" and "[h]e has been wanting to die for a long time, and since Jhab's mother's death, this desire became I think an all-consuming longing"; going on to discuss the concept of willing oneself to die, and bringing up something she read "about a famous German-Jewish historian ... who committed suicide a few months ago at the age of 82 ... I also read in that account that it was a Jewish tradition to have the means of suicide always at hand after a certain age"; noting that her father-in-law's death "was announced in all the papers today" and over the radio yesterday" as he had been a prominent figure in his day-- "[a]fter Independence he was offered a Ministership in Bombay ... but he turned it down because he couldn't stand those Congress people"; relating that after studying "your bearded photograph," Renana pronounced that "it looked like Jim unshaved"; assuming that by now "the thing has come off" and Ivory has "eyed one of those nice London haircuts too with accompanying temptations and blandishments. How civilized"; congratulating him for having completed a film "so fast and so cheaply" and assuming this will make it easier for him to get backing to "make whatever you like and wherever you like. It's like being liberated-- from India, of course, but also from those terrible fears that beset you at the time of release of each film and afterwards"; asking about the lecture Ivory was supposed to deliver in London [see MA 23840.857], and about the audience-- "were there many fierce Indian toads with fierce Indian toad questions?"; asking if Ivory has had a chance to "do anything" about the book jacket for "An Experience of India" with John Murray; claiming that Norton's is better at jacket art; describing how she was forced to find a photo from the photoshoot Kushwant Singh ordered [to accompany her essay in the Illustrated Weekly of India; see MA 23840.918], and her dismay at discovering the photographer posed her in front of her daughters' bookshelves-- "I have at the back of me a number of tattered though colourful little volumes and the titles are clearly visible and read 'What Katy Did Next,' 'Dr. Doolittle' and 'Biggles Takes a Ride.' There are also 3 colour transfers of Donald Duck"; exclaiming "An MIP film where the actors get arrested for indecent exposure!" [see MA 23840.858].