They went on to make nearly forty films together, many of which were written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who also wrote screenplays adapted from literary classics for them, such as Henry James' The Europeans (1979) and The Bostonians (1984), E.M. Forster's A Room with a View (1985) and Howards End (1992), and Peter Cameron's The City of Your Final Destination (2009).

[1] Ivory had shot the documentary The Delhi Way and was editing it in New York, when he met anthropologist Gitel Steed, who was developing a project based on her screenplay, Devgar about a village in Gujarat.

Sidney Meyers was the director, while Ivory agreed to shoot the film, whose cast included Shashi Kapoor, Durga Khote and Leela Naidu.

He also lent his cameraman, Subrata Mitra, as the director of photography, and as a result the film is infused with the fluid, restrained lyricism that characterizes Ray's work.

A Channel 4 review called it "a low-key but rewarding character piece" and "an artful social satire and also a quietly affecting love story",[7] while the New York Times was dismissive.