The book that got Nigel Collett going on his biography of Gen Dyer—The Butcher of Amritsar—was the general's own memoir of his Persian war days. Of course, like all memoirists, Gen Dyer was also given to glossing over inconvenient truths such as the fact that he was not quite the shining hero his memoirs make him out to be, and that in truth he was actually thrown out of his job there. In his recent Indian tour of four cities, Collett portrayed the many contradictions of Gen Dyer's personality: the deep prejudice against all Indians and yet the ability to rouse the admiration of the Indian soldiers who served under him, a bad-tempered, erratic man, an inventor, and at heart, deeply insecure of the threat that Indians posed to the British Empire.
Vanity publishing has always been big abroad but with publishers here offering competitive rates, hopeful writers from as far away as LA and Frisco are turning to fly-by-night publishers. They have no illusions about what they're getting: a cheap deal for getting their magnum opus published with whatever dollar price they wish to attach to it. But one such publisher, Sanbun, is also offering to "co-publish" for Indian authors: Rs 20,000 or so for the pleasure of 10 copies in hand and a further 500 copies which will be put out in bookshops and send out to reviewers.
