London, April 30 :    London, April 30:  If the pen were truly mightier than the sword, something other than words would have flown when writers clashed. Mercifully, Amit Chaudhuri and Rohinton Mistry, both leading Indian writers in English, have reopened an old battle only on the pages of newspapers physically separated by continents. Chaudhuri, who divides his time between Calcutta and Oxford, has written a letter to The Guardian of Britain in response to comments by Mistry, who has made Toronto his home, on an unflattering review of his first book, Such A Long Journey, done by Chaudhuri 11 years ago. The mild-mannered Chaudhuri has lashed out at Mistry after the newspaper published a profile of Mistry last week where the Mumbai-born writer referred to a quarrel with Chaudhuri six years ago over what he thought to be unwarranted remarks made in the review about the Parsi community, to which he belongs. In the review that appeared in the London Review of Books, Chaudhuri wrote: 'The Parsis of Bombay are pale, sometimes hunched, but always with long noses... and (have) a bad temper which one takes to be the result of the incestuous inter-marriages of a small community.' Mistry, known as a quiet and reserved person who likes to keep to himself, did not react at the time. Six years later, when they met in New York at a gathering of Indian writers, Mistry turned to Chaudhuri and asked: 'How could you have written that piece?' This was the version given by a third person present there. The Guardian quoted Mistry narrating the encounter that differed in detail. 'If it had been any other minority - Jewish for instance - what you wrote would have been completely unacceptable,' he told Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri clarified today that in the review in 1991, he had described the Parsi community, 'and which formed such an important part of my childhood and youth in Bombay, with satire not unmixed with affection'. When the two met six years later, 'I clarified to him that I had intended to be ironical and humourous, but certainly not malicious,' Chaudhuri has now written. 'I would like anyone to quote anything from that review that might be said to incite hatred towards the Parsis. I thought the matter closed but am appalled to see it re-introduced.' This is not the first time writers have fought in public. John Le Carre, the celebrated spy thriller writer, had hit back after novelist Salman Rushdie wrote a critical review of his book. American Paul Theroux produced an entire book about his falling-out with Nobel prize winner V.S. Naipaul. In the letter, Chaudhuri explained he had nothing against the Parsi community. He objected to The Guardian describing him as a 'Hindu writer', and said it was a 'mystifying category in which I have never before been placed. I am an atheist.' 'I think of myself fundamentally as an Indian and part of my inheritance are the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religions, and the cultures of several communities, including my own, the Bengali and Mistry's the Parsi,' said Chaudhuri. 'I find this old colonial habit of breaking up Indians into communities and setting them against each other pernicious.' Chaudhuri said he was sorry Mistry had to face religious prejudice. He had no reservations about Mistry on account of his religion. His only reservation had to do with his writing, for he had never 'found the Bombay he encountered in his stories or his first novel particularly persuasive or memorable.' In a final jibe at his fellow Indian writer, Chaudhuri said: 'The depth of his 'Parsi-ness' would perhaps be demonstrated better by discussing the effectiveness with which his writing conveys this quality rather than by recounting quarrels he has had with his reviewers.'