Karishma Mehta
Mehta at 2019 launch of her book, Humans of Bombay: Ordinary People Extraordinary Stories
Occupations
  • Writer
  • photographer
Years active2014–present
Known forHumans of Bombay

Karishma Mehta is a writer and photographer. She is the founder and manager of the website Humans of Bombay that launched in January 2014, and author of the related book Humans of Bombay.[1] She is also a freelance writer and TEDx presenter.

Biography

Mehta was born and raised in Bombay, and attended the Bombay Scottish School, Mahim.[2][3] She attended a boarding school in Bangalore for two years and then college in the UK for three years.[2] In 2013, Mehta was an economics and business student in Nottingham, UK,[3] and holds a degree in Business and Economics[4] from the University of Nottingham.[5][6] She is a freelance writer for various publications, including National Geographic.[3] She has been a regular TEDx presenter,[7] and has spoken several times at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.[8] She is fluent in Hindi, English and Marathi.[8]

Works

In January 2014, she began the Humans of Bombay Facebook page, inspired by the Humans of New York (HoNY) Facebook page by photographer Brandon Stanton.[3][9][4] After discovering the HoNY page in 2013, she tried to find a similar page for Mumbai, and after not finding one, created a logo and made a Facebook page herself.[3] She initially worked with two interns.[2][10] To find subjects for the website, Mehta approaches people on the street and asks to take their picture with her camera,[3][4][8] and asks them questions.[6] By 2018, her team had expanded to six members based in Mumbai, with freelance members in other parts of India.[8]

Similar to the HONY page, Humans of Bombay has transitioned to its own website, humansofbombay.in.[9] According to Amruta Lakhe, writing for The Hindu in 2016, the website has crowd-funded resources for the subjects of posts, and the "blog made it possible to talk about taboo subjects, and has also allowed people to reach out to one another."[9] Poorvi Joshi of the Hindustan Times writes in 2016, "Mehta's subjects have battled abusive marriages, drug habits, social exclusion. Through her efforts, she has given them a voice."[3] In 2018, Mehta told the Khaleej Times, "we have raised about INR 5 crores not only for acid attack victims but also daughters of sex workers, children who require bone marrow transplants, etc."[8]

In 2016, she compiled posts, including ones that had not been published online, into a self-published book, Humans of Bombay,[4] in her first attempt to directly raise money to fund the website.[3]

As of 2021, the site has over a million followers on Facebook and over two million on Instagram.[11] In 2022, she launched an interview-based YouTube web series called "How The Hell Did I Do It?" which features businesspeople, celebrities, and other accomplished people answering interview questions to provide insight on how they accomplished certain things in their lives.[12]

References

  1. ↑ "Meet The Founder: Karishma Mehta {Humans of Bombay}". The Post. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Singh, Tanaya (26 November 2015). "Meet the Human Behind the Popular 'Humans of Bombay' Page". The Better India. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Joshi, Poorva (6 May 2016). "Meet Karishma Mehta, the woman behind Humans of Bombay". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Shaikh, Sadaf (11 January 2018). "Karishma Mehta On How Humans Of Bombay Captures The Invincible Spirit Of The City". Verve. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  5. ↑ Vaz, Wyanet (29 April 2016). "Karishma Mehta On The Power Of A Facebook Page". Verve. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  6. 1 2 Lakhe, Amruta (22 April 2014). "Being the humans of Bombay". The Indian Express. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  7. ↑ Borges, Andre (17 October 2017). "People Are Inspired By The Woman Behind Humans Of Bombay Honestly Speaking About Her Failures". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Rodrigues, Janice (3 August 2018). "Meet the Humans of Bombay founder". Khaleej Times. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 Lakhe, Amruta (14 April 2016). "From the heart, through a lens". The Hindu. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  10. ↑ Kasana, Archana (10 May 2021). "Karishma Mehta: The 'First Human' At Humans Of Bombay". Her Zindagi. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  11. ↑ Jain, Sanya (25 November 2021). "She Was Just 21 When She Started 'Humans Of Bombay'. Here's Her Story". NDTV.com. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  12. ↑ "How the hell did she do it?". Hindustan Times. 10 September 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
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