What began as a project inspired by the popularly known Facebook photography page, Humans of New York, Karishma Mehta’s Humans of Bombay has grown into something in stark contrast – a supremely humbling portrayal of humanity, with a typically Indian twist in the plot.
Mehta has just turned 24. Her story begins three years earlier, when armed with boarding school experience from Bangalore, and a business and economics degree from the University of Nottingham in the U.K., she returned to her native Mumbai, not entirely sure what was next.
Not a photographer herself at the time, Mehta says she had seen the Humans of New York page, and had been impressed by how something so seemingly small could have such a large impact. She couldn’t see why something like this couldn’t exist in her own city.
“Randomly out of the blue on this one Sunday I called up a photographer friend,” she says, narrating the tale of her beginnings with Humans of Bombay, “our first shoot was on Marine Drive, I’d never approached a stranger on the street before.”
After being turned down by 10 people, an old lady said she’d be happy to be photographed, and sat for a forty minute long chat – so beginning a new chapter in Mehta’s career. That was 2014.
Today, the
“We don’t do scene acts,” says Mehta, “ we like giving the whole story from the beginning to the end – people like to hear the backstories.”
Through talking to people on the streets of Mumbai, formerly known as 'Bombay', a name left by the British, Mehta brings stories from all segments of Indian society to the forefront - from the glittering streets of the poshest neighborhoods to the darkest alleys of the slums. Mumbai is also home to India's major Hindi film industry.
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Homosexuality, acid attack victims, sex workers, domestic violence, a girl with incurable alopecia, a young boy with progeria, inter-community and inter-caste love stories, are among the taboo subjects she touches upon through her interviews. These are peppered with simple, beautiful snapshots of daily life – a shopkeeper taking a five minute break, someone walking their dog. The stories portray a people with a tough work ethic and huge sense of family and community.
“I was shocked that people were very very open to a lot of themes, when we featured homosexuals, a lesbian girl – people have come out blaring all guns in support,” she says.
The likes on her posts will shoot up into the thousands within minutes of a new story appearing.
“There are negative comments, but people shut those down so quickly and brutally that it is almost an unspoken rule – if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all,” says Mehta.
And unlike the New York namesake, politics are not part of the bargain in Bombay. Mehta says she’d like to keep it that way – giving people plain portrayals of humanity stripped from any political edges.
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Not only do her posts garner likes, but Humans of Bombay has also raised over $60 thousand for various causes in the past year alone. In highlighting a story of a woman who had survived an acid attack, money was raised for the acid attack survivor charity and anti-acid movement, Make Love Not Scars.
Another post highlighted how a daughter of a sex worker had been thrown out onto the street on her landlord discovery of her mother’s occupation. The story generated $10 thousand from well-wishers wanting to help the girl pay for accommodation. This evolved into further funds being channeled towards an empowerment initiative called Kranti. Humans of Bombay or Mehta do not take any commission from funds raised.
A young boy with the genetic disorder progeria. You can read more of his story on Humans of Bombay.
“The audience is so supportive and forgiving, it’s unbelievable sometimes,” says Mehta.
Although her page has garnered over half a million likes – it’s not as many as one would expect for a city that has a population of close to 22 million, the fourth most densely populated city in the world. Mehta says this is due to the fact that posts are all made in English – not the language spoken by the majority of the local population.
But she plans on resolving this as Humans of Bombay evolves into a fully-fledged company. Mehta’s plot twist is a business angle that won’t let the concept lose it’ humanistic and fully charitable side.
“I definitely want it to become a 360 degree media house,” she says, “I want to focus on getting into videos, I want to focus on getting into live events – I also want to start translating stories into local languages.”
She also plans to expand the concept in other major cities across India.
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Completely incidentally, at the time of this interview, Mehta announced she was releasing a for-profit book, filled with hundreds of stories that have never appeared in public before along with fillers and spreads evoking the city of Mumbai.
Since beginning she has learned how to shoot with a DSLR camera, and has a team of interns working with her. They head out into the city daily to gather stories.
Mehta knows each and every story by heart, and tells of so many incidents. The little girl in Dharavi slum who, even though living in a place so starved of water, offered up her own cup to Mehta. The engineer who gave up his well-salaried, corporate job to become a taxi driver intent on helping anyone in need, after his wife had a miscarriage and no taxi would take her to the hospital.
Does she have a favorite story among these?
“The story I keep thinking of often is of this really old woman I met and how she voluntarily married someone who was deaf and dumb,” she says, “She said, ‘if given the choice, I would choose him every lifetime,’ - it was phenomenal.”
The lady who married a deaf and dumb man. You can read more of her story on Humans of Bombay.
