Karishma Mehta (born 5 March 1992) is the founder of the photo blog page
Humans of Bombay which launched in January 2014, and author of the related book ''Humans of Bombay''.
Biography
Mehta was born and raised in
Mumbai
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
and attended the
Bombay Scottish School, Mahim.
She attended a boarding school in
Bangalore
Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
for two years and then college in the UK for three years.
In 2013, Mehta was an economics and business student in Nottingham, UK,
and holds a degree in business and economics
from the
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948.
Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...
.
She is a freelance writer for various publications, including ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
''.
She is a
TEDx speaker.
Mehta is fluent in Hindi, English and Marathi.
She is the niece of
Zarna Garg.
Works
In January 2014, Mehta began the ''Humans of Bombay'' Facebook page, copied from American Photographer
Brandon Stanton's - the
Humans of New York (HoNY) Facebook page.
After discovering the HoNY page in 2013, she tried to find a similar page for Mumbai, and after not finding one, she created a logo and made a Facebook page herself.
To find subjects for the website, Mehta approached people on the street
and interviewed them.
By 2018, her team had expanded to six members based in Mumbai, with freelance members in other parts of India.
In 2016, Mehta compiled posts, into a self-published book, ''Humans of Bombay'',
in her attempt to directly raise money to fund the website.
As of 2021, the site has over a million followers on Facebook and over two million on Instagram. 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.
Plagiarism and Controversy
In October 2023, Mehta faced widespread cyber trolling after a failed attempt at suing another page 'People of India' for copyright infringement and Mehta's work called out for plagiarism. Mehta and Humans of Bombay also received criticism from their inspiration Brandon Stanton, the founder of the Humans of New York
References
External links
Almost every photo has a common undertone of Mumbai: Karishma Mehta(''Hindustan Times'', 2016)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehta, Karishma
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century Indian women writers
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Writers from Mumbai
Indian women photographers
Indian writers
Indian photographers