Talk:Ismail Merchant

Can someone fix the terrible English?
The misuse of articles and prepositions is a clear giveaway that the author is not a native English speaker.

What about Ismail's wife Parmesh?
There is no mention of Ismail's wife : Parmesh Merchant in this article. Was Ismail a closet homosexual, with James Ivory as his partner? One can't say for sure. However, it is important to point out that he was married, and his wife's name is Parmesh.


 * Google searches for "Ismail Merchant", wife, and Parmesh brings up a grand total of 2 hits - one on Yahoo!, the other on Hollywood.com. Google search for "Ismail Merchant" and Parmesh brings up 5 hits, 3 of which have unrelated uses of the word Parmesh; the other two being the Yahoo! and Hollywood.com hits. This is highly suspicious. I think Parmesh is an Indian male name. Some obituaries mention that Ismail never married; no obituaries mention Parmesh. The Yahoo! and Hollywood.com pages are wrong. Bwithh 21:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Parmesh is a name applicable to both genders
Hello,

That's the reason why I mentioned this name -- I found it on the internet search engines. However, to your query that implies Parmesh is a male-only name, that need not be necessarily accurate.

There are many names and nicknames in several Indian languages that could be applicable to either gender. For eg -- in Gujarati, you have names like Bijal, Tejal, etc. YOu have another common name, Kiran, applicable to both genders. In Punjabi, you have several nicknames like Kukki, Tony, Jassi, etc that could go either way. Just because the name Parmesh sounds masculine, it need not necessarily be that he does not havea wife by that name. Again, since I'm the person who originated this discussion, I was just trying to seek clarity on this matter. I'll try to do some more research and hopefully, we'll come up with something less hazy.

Confirmed that he was unmarried
Bwithh,

You really touched upon a raw nerve of mine because I thought I had done my homework, relating to his wife's name (he he he).

However, the Wikipedia article is right as to the fact that Ismail was unmarried. I did a Google search on "Ismail Merchant" family. It gives you the link to a rediff.com (a reputed Indian internet site) article, that speaks of his family on the occasion of his death. That article specifically says he was unmarried, and I will tend to believe rediff.

As to whether he and Jim Ivory were partners, this is a question out of my league. I wish someone out there, who probably knew this great duo, could confirm this.

Just want to state that people into trivia get extremely picky on the minutiate and you really irked me (and I mean that in a sincere, thankful way), when you "questioned" my posting.

Memon Community
Ismail Merchant's Last Name along with the Last Names of his sister's suggest that he belonged to the Memon Community. Except his sister married into a Khan family, all others exhibit Memon Last Names. The Below link shows that Ismail Merchant's mother is a Memon as her Last Name is Memon and his father's Last Name is also a typical Memon Last Name.

->Ismail's Mother a sure Memon

Romantic relationship with Ivory
Regarding queries over Ivory's relationship with Merchant as romantic life partner, this is public knowledge, and I am copying and pasting a reply below that I wrote some time ago to another user who queried the same thing about Merchant:

Most newspaper obituaries of Ismail Merchant did not address directly his romantic relationship with James Ivory. A notable exception was the Los Angeles Times - one of the three major US national newspapers.

Please see this link to the obit article in the LA Times archives:
 * Obituary of Ismail Merchant, LA Times, May 26 2005

Note how the first line of the article excerpt describes James Ivory as Merchant's life partner in addition to being a professional partner. The full article (I have the full article from a commercial database with restricted access) ends with the line:

"In addition to Ivory, Merchant is survived by sisters Saherbanu Kabadia, Sahida Retiwala, Ruksana Khan and Rashida Bootwala."

i.e. Ivory is treated with greater priority in that final sentence than Merchant's 4 sisters, and the use of "survived" indicates a personal relationship.

There was some unhappiness in the LGBT community that most obituraries censored or used euphemisms for the personal relationship between Merchant and Ivory e.g. The original Guardian obit (there were 2) used a pointed and emphatic last line "He did not marry."

Please see also this column from the Washington Post, another of the major 3 US national newspapers addressing this unhappiness about the censorship:
 * "Question Celebrity", Washington Post, June 26 2005

and this one from the LGBT newspaper, The Washington Blade:
 * "News organizations ignore gay filmmaker’s sexual orientation"

see also these blog posts:
 * http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/05/ismail_merchant.html
 * http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/2005/05/rip-ismail-merchant.html

Bwithh 22:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

In my view the Guardian obituary was hostile and disrespectful in the extreme. This is unusual and begs the question why was this section of the British establishment so rattled by him?--Wool Bridge (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Merchant
When did he start using Merchant as his last name, and why? Because of the last name I always mistakenly thought he was a Parsi. Ahassan05 16:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)ahassan05

Citizenship
Did he hold British citizenship? If so, when did he acquire it? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 21:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Questions
This article leaves open several questions that need to be addressed: When did he meet Ivory? Where did he meet Ivory? How long after meeting did they begin living together? When did he change his name to "Merchant"? Why did he change his name to "Merchant"? Nick Beeson (talk) 14:20, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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