Pramila's Sucess & Struggles

Born and brought up in the city of Colombo Sri Lanka as the second child to a traditional tamil couple Mr. Mahadeva Ratnakantha and Mrs. Nesamma Ratnakantha, Pramila Nageshwararaj grew up attending Bharatanatyam and Carnatic Lessons besides educational studies together with her elder sibling Miss Shyamala Ratnakantha. Even during her childhood she had immense passion for tamil that she enjoyed ‘illakiyam’ otherwise Tamil Literature. She then continued to become a teacher and served in the country until she got married in 1997 to Mr. Nageshwararaj Aiyathurai, a civil engineer and moved to Swaziland which is a beautiful kingdom situated in the south of Africa.

20 years post migration, Pramila started a business which she runs in partnership with her husband and a compact family consisting of herself, husband and her daughter Miss Abilashini Nageshwararaj who is a software engineer by profession. Through the years Pramila had perfected the art of cooking and was engrossed with the Tamil language. She started to post about these two aspects in her social media with gained the attention of her many friends thus she was encouraged to take her skill to the next notch. Pramila started providing content to Facebook TVs gaining an immense audience. A couple of months later Pramila started her own Facebook page and started uploading her content such as Cooking recipe videos, Multicuisine food videos, cooking shorts, Motivational Stories etc.

The knowledge she gained during her education and her field work have given her the opportunity to open every door and to unleash her ideas. It was of course not a bed of roses for Pramila, as she faced a lot of hurdles in her journey towards the top. She had negative experiences as she had to tackle many Facebook TV owners who did not value her content and began to limit her potential. She found almost all the doors closed upon her but she never let hope burn out, she continued her passion and surpassed all her hurdles exceptionally well.

Initially the growth of Pramila’s Kitchen Africa was slow but within a year, Pramila’s fan following began to increase mainly because of the consistent content production and the credibility of the content. Pramila celebrated her 100th Motivational story with her fans who sent their wishes in video individually, she chose the best and posted them. Pramila also works for 2 radio channels in London and Germany respectfully where she provided food related content according to the time frame allocated, from 7 minutes in one channel to another for about an hour. From writing scripts, Pramila took her talent to another notch when she started writing for TamilAruvi, a newspaper in Sri Lanka providing 60+ articles taking on themes depending on World events, she was even applauded by many readers openly for some articles for writing exceptionally well. Pramila also does event themed multicuisine food videos where she makes international food and prepares a table full of dishes like Italian cuisine on one day, Chinese cuisine on another while Scandinavian cuisine following. She has prepared exquisite dishes that are rare such as a Christmas cake using Orange Juice that uses no egg or alcohol or ‘More Idli’, Noodles Dosa among many other quick dishes. Pramila has qualities that she inherits from her mother Mrs. Nesamma Ratnakantha, this includes her food taste, cooking morals and methods. Pramila’s mother was an economic cook, she was able to make good dishes with what was available in their house, today Pramila makes dishes with ingredients that can be easily found in every household. The ideas was to make international dishes easily made in every household, even the contemporary complicated ones.

Today, Pramila has 145+ Motivational Stories, 150+ Cooking Recipes, and 30+ Cooking Shorts, each having an average view count of 82K +, 50K +, 71K + views respectfully. Many listen to her radio shows every week diligently giving honestly positive feedback. A lot of people read her articles and Pramila was able to hold a place in many hearts as a Professional tamil article writer. Pramila does all these work as a part-time together with her full-time job which is her business, post-work Pramila works on her passion. 

Recognizing her hard work and success, Pramila has been awarded multiple awards such as the Lifetime Achievement Award and ‘Portkalaigiam’ Award from South Indian Folk Arts Association from India in 2021 and 2022 November and was followed by Outstanding Professional Woman by All Indian Woman Achievement Awards in December 2021. Further Pramila was recognized as American’s Rising Star by American Awards 2022 and as Wonder Woman by Woman Icon 2022. Influencer Book of World Records has recently awarded Pramila with a world record for the continuity and consistency as well as the Tamil aspect of her scriptwriting and the motivational story reaching a milestone.

Despite all the struggles, Pramila did not acquire success in a single song, she had to wait, fight and persevere through the odds, the competition was crowding, she consistently did was she does best, working for her passion which she plans on doing in the future.

Pramila’s Key Message: Combine something you enjoy doing with something that is useful and make your own idea into reality. All work should pay off at some point. Success is not a destination, it is a journey as there no full stops, just commas.