Dr Sandeep Bhatnagar is a retired IAS officer, writer, and keen observer of human nature. After nearly four decades in public service in Himachal Pradesh, much of it spent working closely with communities and institutions, he turned to fiction to explore the quiet complexities of everyday life. His writing draws on lived experience, balancing an administrator's insight with a storyteller's sensitivity. His debut collection of short stories, Lanterns in the Fog (2026), reflects his enduring interest in the contradictions of human behaviour, the silences beneath social interactions, and the small lights of hope that persist amid life's ambiguities.
