HE MOVED HIS CHEESE

No one who has eaten Ajay Singh's fabulous, preservative-free cheeses crafted from goat milk would believe his journey-from village boy to artisanal cheese maker. It is proof that the best creations emerge from the alchemy of human determination meeting raw possibility

- Text and Photograph By BANDEEP SINGH

From the sprawling urban landscape of Delhi, where corporate ambitions unfold in glass-walled highrises, Ajay Singh embarked on a road less travelled—one that would lead him from corporate professionalism to the earthy wisdom of running a goat farm with 300 goats.

The son of a CRPF sub-inspector from Barsana village in Haryana's Charkhi Dadri, Ajay trained as an accountant and worked in banking. The property boom in 2011 led him to switch boats and open a real estate company and purchase 35 acres of farmland near Alwar, Rajasthan. The aim was to sell farm plots. In 2015, the Indian real estate marked nosedived. Ajay, who was living in the village to develop the plots, had invested his savings in land that now had no buyers. "There were times when I had no money to buy eggs and bread for my children," he reminisces.