Meet Abhishek Singh, the Lucknowi student who through his page Humans of Bhubaneswar wants to show daily struggles of the people in the city

Humans of New York, a Facebook page started by Brandon Stanton, has inspired many pages to start something on the same lines. Some of the famous Indian ones being Humans of Bombay, Humans of New Delhi and several others. Humans of Bhubaneswar too is one of the pages which was inspired and the founder Abhishek Singh took great pains and spent a couple of weeks to understand the Humans of New York page before he launched Humans of Bhubaneswar in January last year.

Before starting the page, 21-year-old Singh was already running Humans of IIIT Bhubaneswar and had experience in content writing as well. "One of my friends suggested that I check out the Humans of NY page and that's when I decided to start a similar local page," he shares. 

Singh feels that though the page has reached a certain height, it hasn't crossed any milestones. He would like to see the page grow further

Singh is from Lucknow and it was higher studies that bought him to Odisha's capital city. Naturally, he doesn't speak Odia but because of the three years he spent at IIIT Bhubaneswar, he can surely understand the language. And it is with this conviction that he started approaching people, asking them to share their story and pose for a photograph. But when has it ever been easy to open up strangers? "Initially, we faced a lot of rejections. But the trick is to approach people with confidence and a positive attitude," says Singh. As soon as he understood this, he started applying the same and the results are up on the page for all of us to see. 

From the recent posts about travelers from Cagliari, Italy, Fabio Carta and Claudia Caddeo who were enjoying their trip to Odisha and it's delicious delicacies like chenna poda to the heart-warming story of Amiya Patra, who joined the film industry after being a part of the Navy - all the tales up on the page endear in one way or the other. "I travel a lot within the city and wherever I go, I try and observe people. I then approach them and talk to them casually and ask them about their daily life and struggles," Singh shares. 

People have several layers to them. We see a small percentage of who they are and assume the rest. I want to peel back the layers and then understand them

Abhishek Singh, Founder, Humans of Bhubaneswar 

But because placements are going on at his institute, Singh is finding it a little difficult to carry out work for his page on a regular basis. He still manages to travel during the weekends and even take recommendations which come through direct messages on their page, to explore a story. Singh also wants to start doing video stories in the coming future, though they have experimented with it before as well. Singh does realise that this page is important for his career as well. "I have understood how to approach and communicate with people because of this page," concludes Singh.

To check out the page, click on facebook.com/bhubaneswarhumans/