Colonel Hemant Saxena is a soldier-scholar and an Indian Army veteran. He is best described as someone starting his journey to be a published author with a collection of stories titled ‘Olive Diaries’. These stories rise above the stereotype of projecting military heroes and their lives in a predictable manner, where the characters are often seen wearing patriotism on their sleeves.

Colonel Saxena has many stories to share with his readers that are based on his personal experiences spanning over three decades in the Indian Army. A civil engineer by education, Colonel Saxena had started his career as a Sapper Officer in the Indian Army in 1984 and later during 1991, he transited to Military Intelligence branch and served till his superannuation in 2015.

This stint helped him get a rare insight into the finer nuances of World’s second oldest profession shrouded in the mystery of cloak and dagger, which is also reflected in his writings. Colonel Hemant Saxena acquired graduate degree in Civil Engineering from Government Engineering College Jabalpur (1983), a Master’s in Business Administration from Amity University Uttar Pradesh (2012) and is a qualified instructor in Information Warfare from Army War College Mhow (2012).

His interest in writing developed during the early phase of his student life where he experimented with stories, poems, and theatre scripts for school/college festivals and magazines. Of late he has written for ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ (Hindi) on matters related to defence after superannuation from the Army service. Olive Diaries; a collection of seven stories, is the first book by the author.