Open Letter

29/09/2006

Open letter by Manuel Lucas Sanchis, nephew, great-grandson and godson of Anita Delgado Briones, Princess of Kapurthala

In relation to the controversy which arose after the purchase by part of the actress Penélope Cruz to the rights of the book “Pasión India - Indian Passion” by Javier Moro (1955), we received the following missive which we reproduce in its entirety:

Apparently our international actress Penélope Cruz has bought all the rights to the book “Pasión India - Indian Passion” written by a certain J. Moro. This has caused indignation to the Hindi family of my great grand aunt Anita Delgado Briones and of course to all the Spanish family of the once Princess of Kapurthala. All this is justified by a great deal of errors, incertitudes, frivolousness and mediocrity which all accumulate in said book, and which attempts to give a more saleable image of the leading character and the world in which, due to life’s coincidences, she had to live in.

I would recommend that Penélope Cruz, in the case that she wish to make a worthy film about Anita Delgado Briones, in which good taste is praised, love, the urge to improve and adapt, the beauty and the historic substratum of the life and times that surrounded the existence of the Princess of Kapurthala, not to base the script on said book, as it has nothing to do with the reality, at least in the most important aspects.

My grandmother Lady Victoria Winans Delgado, blood niece of Anita Delgado, facilitated photos, family data, documentary support and all types of related material to the Galician writer Elisa Vázquez de Gey who has published various books about the figure of the Princess of Kapurthala with information obtained directly from the Spanish family of Anita Delgado, who morally named her as her personal biographer.

The Spanish family understands in whose name and representation I am writing to you, that, any film which is made about the family of our relative should be made with the intent of praising the figure of a Spanish woman who life lead to live a unique existence, a fairy tale, in the dawn of the 20^th century, but not a film in which the harems, the supposed infidelities and the conspirations that are totally out of context and seek the morbidness, the mediocrity of a possible nude shot of the actress or the simple relation of a few episodes in the life of the character that are totally unfounded.

Therefore if they wish to do something important, study the character, become informed, receive adequate documentation and with that they will receive the total impartial collaboration, like has been done to date, by the Spanish family of Anita Delgado, in order to introduce the life of a Spanish woman who was given a one in a million opportunity which changed her normal existence.

Many thanks.

Manuel Lucas Sanchis
Nephew and great grand son of Anita Delgado Briones, Princess of Kapurthala.