Woman entrepreneur deserving admiration

A niece in Kandy sent me two cheeses and butter which she said she bought from a farm owned by a woman in Digana. The combination of Digana and a woman managing a farm were intriguing. Digana was an oft visited holiday resort years ago – the housing complex left by the Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Company once the Victoria Dam was completed. A woman going off the beaten track and adventuring to manage a farm was of great interest which led to my getting in touch with Ayesha Perera and ordering her chilly cheese and butter. I asked her whether I could write about her and after some time, she consented to being interviewed.

Biographical tidbits

Ayesha Perera nee de Silva attended Good Shepherd Convent, Kandy, and then Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya. She met Nalin Perera whose parents had migrated to London in 1970, holidaying in Sri Lanka in 1991. They were attracted to each other. He returned to London and their friendship continued for three years mainly via aerogrammed correspondence. He fortuitously said he wished to return to his home country, which he did in 1994; shortly after which they were married.

They left for Britain but “I did not mind the unfamiliar-to-me, mind-you–own-business attitude but I found the food objectionable, longing as I was for home cooked rice and curry. The Dickensian atmosphere with no sunshine and natural warmth depressed me. Everyone is Sri Lanka knows everyone else but over there being private is what is called for. I felt the cold of London, not only its temperature, but also its lack of the warmth of easy going, friendly people. So we both agreed to return to Sri Lanka, to give back what we could to our home country.”

“My father had been a tea planter and we were used to rearing cows and being served vegetables from the gardens of the estates we lived in. The Dover Stove we called Aga was intriguing. And in my childhood I often lost myself in Famous Five adventures with my younger sisters.”

Nalin had wanted to settle down in Nuwara Eliya and Ayesha in Kandy. They compromised by deciding on Digana to make their home in, and bought ten acres of neglected, overgrown land that belonged to three brothers. This was in 2002.The golf course was being constructed and thus land had shot up in price.

“It was a baptism of fire – our deciding on running a farm since Digana being on the boundary of the Dry Zone, is not an ideal place for farming. The top soil was thin and lay over a bed of dolomite which is mined to make cement and for other purposes. Nalin dug out the dolomite for hours to grow vegetables, often alone with helpers too tired to work (or lazy), and replaced it with better soil.

Life was hard, tough, but we persisted. I was sure God had a purpose in bringing us to this place. Once we settled down we partnered with Walkers Tours in 2012 to manage a ‘Live Like Locals’ Eco Home Stay named Tamarind Gardens. We offered home stays to local families too who enjoy close living with nature and our cattle. We are very grateful to our staff, especially the women, who worked very hard to give of their best to our guests, and to us to make a success of the project. What we grow – vegetables and fruit – is sufficient for our home use and to share with our workers.”

Ayesha said with justifiable pride that Nalin is a doer and she never gives up when faced with adverse situations

“Nalin wanted to rear cows. We bought five and we soon got to love the ‘girls’. They, in return, gave us abundant milk from which we made several products – pure, unadulterated, with no artificial colouring or chemicals added; butter and five varieties of cheese being our specialities. We soon were getting our products out on sale.” Nalin and Ayesha travel to Colombo once every week (barring the petrol shortage times) and deliver cheeses and butter to the door of those who request them; also to outlets like French Baguette down Duplication Road. Again, unfortunately, price increase in food for cows compelled the couple to downsize their herd.

Gratitude, Humanity and Concerns

Her interest in the village widened when she got heavily involved with a women’s group called Liya Diriya – Women’s Strength. The group was into home crafts like recycling of exercise books. They collected discarded books, tore off the used pages and freshly ‘adorned’ the left overs with brightly painted covers and marketed them as new books. They made shopping bags and carry-alls from amuredi – grey cloth. She helped by better organizing the running of both projects and insisted on prior bulk buying, so the women never ran out of the needed raw material. She saw to it that they bulk bought when amuredi was plentifully available.

At the end of my invigorating chat with Ayesha who had come to Colombo alone by bus that day, she said that she agreed to be interviewed and written about because she desired sharing her concern for the youth of her area, which may apply to all youth island-wide. She was sad to see them spurning their grassroots, their traditional livelihood of farming.

“Garment factories take our young ones away and they are then on a sort of conveyor belt. Consequently, they lose their humanity, their ‘seelachara kama’.

They too are caught in the web of commercialism and belief that money is everything. They forget their rural hereditary roots: the good earth and drawing sustenance for life from it.” The new trend, she noted, was the younger generation of farming families not wanting to soil their hands with working on the land. If they earned degrees or even otherwise, they felt too superior to engage in manual labour.

I agreed fully with Ayesha and admitted she was a better judge living and income generating on the land, closely interacting with rural families. This sure is a characteristic of Sri Lankans, mostly the Sinhalese. There is no sense or recognition by most persons of the dignity of labour. Trousered and most often long haired and bearded, they consider the government is obliged to give them jobs, and high paying desk jobs at that.

Ayesha continued her complaint on another tack, as people who loves their country. Nalin and she came up against illicit money making. Once when they walked around the unkempt land they had bought, especially along the boundaries, they found barrels hidden in bushes. On investigating the contents by Nalin carefully opening one barrel, they found it contained kasippu, distilled elsewhere but hidden in their property, banking on the fact the police would not search these ten acres.

Ayesha felt outraged. I can well imagine her horror and anger at finding her land commandeered for an illegal operation. She opened the outlets of the barrels and let the kasippu drain away to sink in the soil, taking away anticipated loads of cash. The kasippu distillers were sure shocked by this newly arrived woman’s daring act. But they were cowed down by her angry impetuosity and mercifully did nothing in retaliation. Many of them were displaced by the construction of the Victoria Dam and Golf Course and were settled in the village of Aluthwatte. They soon took to her as she spoke Tamil to them. We suppose she showed mercy and they respected her.

Nalin and she acted positively and even stuck their necks out when the Muslims were attacked in Digana and its environs. They went to the attacked places, no sooner the news came to them, and collected families and brought them to their home and kept them safe in their bedroom. No leader-monk or marauding thug dared enter their premises, not the police either.

This intrepid entrepreneur and her helpmate husband who gave up a comfortable life in London, or living easier in any chosen spot in Sri Lanka, need to be applauded and wider known for their enterprises and the mercy and concern shown the villagers they live among.

Thank goodness, she and her husband have been recognized and acknowledged. They were awarded Tripadvisor Certificates of Excellence in 2015, 2016 and 2017. If you are interested in buying their exotic cheeses and/or butter you can email Ayesha at tamarindgardensfarm@gmail,com or tamarindgardensac@gmail,com. I got her permission to share this information with you.