Well, the musicals give emphasis to love, longing, melancholy, sadness. All of that is always there.

He also wrote books on film-making including a book about the making of the film The Deceivers in 1988 called Hullabaloo in Old Jeypur and another about the making of The Proprietor called Once Upon a Time. Someone once described us as a three-headed god. Novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was the screenwriter for most of their productions.

Merchant succeeded as an independent producer in Hollywood for more than 40 years. Ismail Merchant (25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005) was an Indian-born film producer and director best known for the results of his famously long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included director (and Merchant's longtime professional and personal partner) James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.