A Soldier-Scholar & an Indian Army Veteran
Colonel Hemant Saxena: A Citizen Soldier and Raconteur
A love affair with rural folklore that revolved around adventures of ‘Dilwar Chor’ and ‘Samudra Badshah ki Beti’ began 50 years ago with my grandfather’s fascinating narrations during bed time. It was perhaps the vacuum created due to his sudden demise that made me search for stories in every walk of life. This also led me to a pleasant discovery of being able to stitch heartwarming stories when every summer siblings and cousins from the extended family gathered for vacation. It gave me a new high and with this, my affair with story telling started many decades ago.
My early childhood memories are filled with rich graphics of me scribbling away merrily in the empty pages of my notebooks although most of it never reached conclusion. Notwithstanding this, my passion with words continued to flourish duly fuelled by over three decades in the Indian Army and a unique opportunities to discover untouched aspects of a soldier’s life in the nondescript nooks and corners of our country. My writings can therefore be seen with unmistakable imprints of the journey of a soldier in his personal and professional life in to the unexplored.
Olive Diaries is my first published book; a collection of eight sensitive stories of our soldiers with different hues and colours. My current project, a novel in Hindi titled दरार: एक ग़ैर ज़रूरी कहानी deals with challenges faced by a soldier in Siachen Glacier and his struggle for emotional wellbeing in the face of multiple near death encounters.
My two other stories contributed to different anthologies are “Tso Near yet Chho Far” and “Tau Express”. The first one (TNYCF) deals with my esoteric experiences in Ladakh while the second one (TE) is a travel anecdote that touches a gentle chord while triggering childhood memories inside a crowded train compartment.
In recent years, upon his retirement from the Army, I have been contributing to the Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Bhaskar on defense-related topics and flash points along Eastern and Western borders with China and Pakistan.
