BENGALURU : While we’ve heard many life stories of relatively well-known Bengalureans on Faces of Bengaluru, CE put a face to the upcoming Facebook page, run by Vikas Badiger. The 25-year-old HR professional runs FoB, which is a one-man show. In 2014, Vikas got interested in photography, and subsequently started FoB in 2016 while pursuing an MBA in Italy. “Since childhood, I was aware of a lot of people who were doing things that changed lives and made a difference in the city, but often went unnoticed. May be it was that or the love to create stories through photography that resulted in FoB,” he says about the page whose first story was about the owners of the legendary Vidyarthi Bhavan.
While Humans of New York and Humans of Bombay are meant to be inspirational and features lesser-known people, Vikas, for his creation, looks at featuring those who have been making a difference to the city already. “We’re looking at those who have an impact on other’s lives. Or even stories of people who have taken up an off-beat career to try and understand why they do what they do. I often feel that we find ourselves in someone else’s story. Small parts of what they do, I do too,” he believes.
Vikas does not plan his questions in advance, instead goes with the flow of the conversation. “I have been rejected by a few because they think I am not genuine. But that’s part and parcel of what I do,” he says. A particularly favourite story of Vikas was an interaction with a ‘Bat Doctor’, who started out as a watchman at a complex in Majestic and then went on to learn the art of cricket bat making.
Some well-known Indian cricketing legends were his customers and yet he continues to charge nominal amounts. Getting to the crux of someone’s story is a huge challenge Vikas’s faces. “I’m an MBA graduate, but I’m learning the art of understanding people and their stories. It takes questions, people and lot of patience to get there. I am working on it,” he says.