When I was 22 years old I worked for Merchant Ivory. This is the film company comprised of Producer Ismail Merchant, Director Jim Ivory, and Writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. They made A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and The Remains of the Day to name a few. Jim owns a house in Claverack, New York which is across the Hudson River from Woodstock and about 2 ½ hours drive from Manhattan. This is where he edits his films. They also have The Merchant Ivory Foundation. A non-profit organization to help young burgeoning artists.
While I was working for them they had a benefit for the foundation on Jim’s estate. I asked Ismail if my parents could come. He said it was okay. About a week before I found myself driving Ismail, Ruth, and her husband Cyrus (nicknamed Jhab) from New York City to Claverack.
Now, I probably should mention that Ismail had just directed his first feature film, In Custody which is about Urdu poetry. Urdu is the language of Pakistan and Indians who are Muslims. Ismail turned to Jhab and said something in Urdu. He then turned to me and asked, “Do you understand what we are saying?”
“No. I never learned to speak Urdu.”
Ismail snaps back, “How can you not speak Urdu? Your parents have done a horrible job raising you.” I pay his comments no mind. But then he speaks to him a second time and asks again, “So you really don’t understand Urdu?”
“No. I really don’t. My parents never taught me Urdu.”
“This is absolutely horrible that you don’t speak your language.” Something I didn't think to say at the time was to correct him that it is not MY language. It is my Parents' language.
“Ismail, I’m afraid my parents are going to come to this benefit only to be loaded with reproaches from you.”
Ismail continued, “Yes. I am going to give them a piece of my mind. They’ve are horrible parents and have done a bad job raising you!” Now, I'm a child of the eighties. I blame all my problems on my parents. And in my personal opinion, they weren’t very good parents. But... THEY ARE MY PARENTS! I was getting perturbed.
First of all, Ismail has never even met my parents. How can he say that? He has no idea what kind of struggles they went through or why they made the choices they did. Second. Ismail has never been married and has no kids. This man doesn’t have a paternal bone in his body. So while he has the right to his opinion, quite frankly it is not one that has a lot of merit. It is not validated by experience. So I chime back, “Ismail, you can’t say that. You have never even met my parents. You don’t know why they made the choices they did.”
Ismail was what I call a “professional arguer.” He was always angry and ready to blow his top at the drop of a dime. I don’t even get two words out before he starts barking over me just repeating the same shit. He doesn’t hear anything I say. Meanwhile I see Ruth and Cyrus getting visibly nervous in the backseat as my focus shifts from driving to arguing. I quickly realize that this is a lost cause. I give up and shut up.
But knowing that I never even made my point really gets my goat. Being forced to sit next to him enervates me even more. As I try to stay contained, the bile rises inside me. I stay quiet and externally shut down. But I grip the wheel so hard that my knuckles blanch.
I had already interned for Merchant Ivory in college. And everyone assumed that I had a connection with Ismail because we are both South Asian. Wrong. I am a coconut (Brown on the outside. White on the inside). I was born in NYC and raised in NJ. Jim is an American (everyone assumes he is English) and was born in Berkeley (where I went to college). He is the one I felt more connected to. When I first started working on this film, Jim said, “You know the drill with Merchant Ivory. There will be lots of yelling and screaming. But if there ever is anything that is truly unacceptable. Do not hesitate to come to me and I will try to do whatever I can to fix the situation.”
When we get to Claverack, the house is in a minor state of disarray. They were moving furniture around for the benefit. I find myself sitting on a Sofa with Jim that is temporarily in a foyer. I lean over and whisper, “Jim, when you get a moment, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“I have a moment now. What is it?”
“No. Not now. This isn’t the right time or place. Later. When we’re alone.”
Jim replies, “We’re alone now. What is it?”
I continue to quietly protest, but he insists. I relent and tell the tale of what happened. As I explain what happened all the emotions that I had bottled up come pouring out and I start balling like a baby while telling the story. “And who the fuck does he think he is? He has no right to say something like that. He’s never even met my parents!”
Then, like a scene from a movie (and with perfect timing) I see through the doorway, Ismail pass by in the hall. He then doubles back and comes in and asks, “What is going on here?”
At this point the emotional floodgates are open and I am beyond perturbed or enervated. I am pissed off with rage, venom, and bile. But I am still cognizant. I snap back, “Ismail, I’m having a private conversation with Jim. Will you please leave us alone.”
Ismail enters the room and with a condescending tone says, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell them. I won’t tell them.” Now in reality his telling my parents that they have done a horrible job raising me is the last of my concerns. If he were to do that he would only making an ass of himself.
It was more the principle of the whole thing. His dogmatic opinion. How rude, condescending, simple minded, and just downright disrespectful, hurtful, and tactless he was. I retort more forcefully, “This has nothing to do with that! Now I’m having a private conversation with Jim so please just leave us alone!”
At this point, Ismail blows a gasket. He raises his fist in the air and screams at the top of his lungs, “You must know something about your culture. Or I’ll beat the hell out of you!”
Now let’s pause a moment. First of all, Ismail is completely wrong. He is an immigrant. I am not. It is not MY culture. My culture is Americana. India and Pakistan are my Parents' culture. But that is not what is important. I am an emotional wreck at this moment. Tears are streaming down my face. My sinuses are filled with mucus. But I am not an idiot. When I worked as an usher in college we were told never to touch in any way an irate customer. Because if we do they could have grounds for a charge of assault. Ismail just made a verbal threat. All I have to do is get him to touch me in anyway. Even if he only grabs my shoulder, I plan to run out of there. The next morning I’ll get a lawyer and sue him for millions of dollars.
Ismail was a closeted homosexual. And while I have my own opinions about that, I am not gay and did not go through puberty in India in the fifties. So my opinion about how he should have lived his life as an adult in America in the nineties has no merit and is not validated. But I do know that if I were to sue, Ismail would fold faster than a Chinese Laundry and settle out of court. The south Asian community loves him. But they are also very conservative when it comes to homosexuality. He would not risk my bringing it up in a court of law.
Back to scene. All of this flashes through my brain in a nanosecond. No sooner are the words out of Ismail’s mouth than I stand up and scream as loud as I can, “You want to beat me up? Okay! Come On! Come On!” I motion with my arms for Ismail to come forward.
At this point Ismail turns into a deer in the headlights. He has no idea what he just said. It was just verbal diarrhea. Jim flips out. He stands up, puts his arms around me to hold me back and says, “Ismail, let me talk to him. Let me talk to him.” Ismail high tails it out of there and Jim and I sit back down. Jim agrees that he behaved inappropriately and assures me that he will talk to Ismail. “Dry your tears” he tells me and this degenerates into a conversation about actor’s loving to cry. He tells me how Christopher Reeve desperately wanted to cry in The Bostonians but he wouldn't let him. However he let Emma Thompson cry in The Remains of the Day because she is a good at it. I come back to a place of emotional normalcy and Jim says, “Okay, go get cleaned up and meet us back here for dinner in half an hour.”
I don’t remember exactly what I said. But it was something along the lines of “Are you insane? After what just happened? I’m gonna go back to my cottage and boil some pasta. You guys have dinner without me. I’ll be just fine.” But Jim is very insistent and eventually I relent.
Dinner is fine, but at the end, just before clean up, Ismail starts asking me questions about whether the people at their office remembered to put this or that in the car. I reply, “I don’t know Ismail. I didn’t load the car.” After a moment, he continues with the same questions, So I repeat with the exact same tone, but a little louder, a little slower, and more emphatically, “I don’t know, Ismail. I didn’t load the car.”
Suddenly Ismail points at me and screams, “Don’t you raise your voice at me or I’ll beat the hell out of you!” This time Ismail probably realized what he said as the words were leaving his mouth because he immediately got up and left.
Jim puts his face down into his palms just over his plate. He says quietly, “We make all these movies and there are no problems. I don’t know what’s happening.”
I am still calm, but a little flabbergasted by Ismail’s threatening physical violence – twice! I say aloud, but mostly to myself, “I must touch a nerve in him.”
Ruth, having the perfect timing of a writer quips back, “Oh, he has a lot of nerves to touch!”
Still reeling, Jim says, “Why don’t you just leave. We’ll clean up.” I was more than happy to get out of there and away from this mad house. Getting out of clean up was just the cherry on top of the cake.
As I walk around the main house back to my cottage I hear from the kitchen window Ismail yelling, “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it!”
Now here’s the punchline: That weekend at the benefit, Ismail meets my parents and immediately starts talking to them in Urdu. He charms the pants off of them. They think he’s the grooviest cat. My protests of “That’s not the same man. He was insulting you and I was defending your honor!” are discounted based on their own experience.
Some people think that fame, success, power, money, or having suffered through hardship gives them the right to berate, belittle, demean, harass and abuse the people who work for them. Ismail was someone who always appeared upset. Maybe it was years of built up hostility about his secret sexuality. I don’t know.
We all have boiling points, are flawed, and can behave inappropriately. But I believe that NOTHING gives a person the right to be an asshole. There is such a thing as basic human decency. The day I heard Ismail died, I felt bad, but for the rest of the day, I had a smirk I couldn’t wipe off my face.
EDITOR'S NOTE & DISCLAIMER: I realize this is a negative post about an argument. Don't expect more of this. This was a one time exception. I felt free to make this exception because Merchant Ivory is based out of New York and already had a horrible reputation. Ismail is dead and the company is essentially defunct.
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