K. J. S. Chatrath joined the Indian Administrative Service in Odisha in 1967 and retired from Bhubaneswar in 2003. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris South, France, for his thesis on the ‘Indo- French Diplomatic Relations’.

In 2009 he visited the Neuve Chapelle Memorial near Lille in France and in late 2014 he went to photograph all the 993 graves stones of Indian martyrs lying in the Mezargues Military Cemetery near Marseille in France. He has authored/edited 15 books-mostly on the Indo-French interface: ‘The Foreign Policy of France’, ‘India in the Debates of the French Parliament 1945-1988’, ‘Vers la Lumiere: A Study of the French School System’, ‘France- A Brief Bibliography’, ‘A Glance at France’, ‘The French Collection’ and ‘The Last Post: Inscriptions on French Graves in India’ etc.