“I am not a morning person and usually get up late in the day. But after joining karate class, I started getting up by 5 in the morning. While travelling from my home in Thiruvanmiyur to karate class in Besant Nagar, I saw a lot of people doing their daily chores. Conservancy workers are cleaning the roads, newspaper agents arranging the newspapers, milk delivery men delivering milk and many more. We might not realise it – but these people make a huge difference in our society and their services usually go unnoticed. The idea of doing a series on them came from that thought. Soon, I started doing the series called While you were sleeping,” Bhavya Desai starts the conversation.

He started observing the workers and understood their mannerisms, body language and facial expressions. “I didn’t interact with them because I wanted to capture them naturally. If I start talking to them, they might get conscious and act differently. I didn’t want that to happen,” he says.

After he started posting pictures on social media, people started giving Bhavya suggestions and many requested him to draw more characters who do their work before 6 am. “I have done nine illustrations so far, but I have got 30 requests from people. I am glad that my work is getting noticed and how many could relate to it. These workers are the ones who make our days better. Usually, I draw people who I see around me. But after getting to know the life of night shift workers, I went on to illustrate those whom we generally don’t meet on a regular day,” he adds.