An appreciation of Michael my friend, boss and mentor

Michael De Zoysa 

Dr. Stephan L. Anthonisz 

I first set eyes on the larger-than-life character of Michael J. De Zoysa, sporting an imposing ‘afro mop’ hairstyle as a 16-year-old school boy, when he picked me up from ‘homeleigh’ my parents’ house on Castle Street to play cricket for the SSC in a Division III game. We hit it off from day one and thus the start of a 40-year-long friendship – mentor, boss and spiritual guide in later years. 

Naturally I called him ‘Mike’ as everyone at the SSC called him by that name; ironically before that day I had only heard him giving Royal Thomian commentaries on SLBC along with his illustrious cricketing dad Lucien, both belting top draw eloquence into their respective ‘mics’ or microphones as it was called it then. 

In the next couple of years, I got to know Mike’s family, his wife Manique and daughters Lara and Natasha on the many visits to their neat and beautifully set out home at Baurs flats. However, a well-known secret was that he had many sons; those of us youngsters who played cricket for the SSC, too numerous to mention by name here! 

Manique was an excellent dancer and the great man was not too shabby on the dance floor; however, it was her charity work and her tenacity at helping out with a church feeding program, teaching orphans at the Maithri Lama Nivasa, St. Nicholas Elders Home and the Home for Children with Special Needs on Layards Road over the last four decades that made Mike really proud of her. She’s been playing bridge since 2004 and now an avid bridge player, Mike supported her interest and spent many weekends and evenings with her bridge partners and fellow players, also driving them to many of the tournaments in the last few years. 

Michael and Manique met in their late teens and had known each other for 55 years and on 27 October they would have celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary. Of the quiet but naughty girls who had the audacity to call me uncle, although I was just a few years older than them, Lara was an excellent swimmer and I remember Michael always pushing her and instilling in her, there is no room for second place. He supported her in all her endeavours, being upset that she missed being picked for an Asian Games meet, whilst qualifying for the Youth Camp at the 1988 Olympics. 

Time passed by and after painting the town red for a while she buckled down to achieve her academic pursuits and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Economics, followed by a Masters in Real Estate Development and Finance and finally just last year completed a postgraduate diploma in High Impact leadership at Cambridge University. She found her life partner in Kelvin, whose parents were from the same area in West Indies that Mike’s mum’s ancestors came from. “Lara has gone full circle,” he said. 

Kelvin having worked for many years in the UK judicial system chose to change direction and in the last five years worked closely with Mike Setting up Ark Asia Ltd., with Mike as Chairman working on a number of public and private initiatives that I hope will be fruitful. 

Natasha went on to obtain a Bachelors of Applied Sciences (Psychology) and has done her fair share of humanitarian work with the mental and health industry over the last 11 years in Queensland, Australia. She is married to Adam, an IT practitioner who has now turned opera singer, who we had the privilege of listening to at the 150th Tea Trade Convention. Mike often bragged of Adam’s star quality; today Adam is part of the prestigious Accademia Del Maggio Musicale, Florence Italy where he is a part of the young artist program. They have a beautiful daughter, Trinity – the apple of Mike’s eye; she is an excellent scholar and more importantly had his sporting genes excelling in hockey, soccer, athletics and tennis.

 The early eighties were very enjoyable and carefree days for us youngsters, being driven around by Mike at break-neck speed in his beloved Ford cars for cricket matches whether it be Radella, Kandy, Kurunegala, Galle or Matara, fitness was done by just sitting in the car on account of the constant self-braking that one would experience as he spun around a hair pin bend at 60 kph, whilst, at the same time giving us lessons on the difference of seedling and vegetatively propagated teas, etc., this stood me in good stead in later years. 

On one occasion I had played a school match on Friday and Saturday and was looking forward to having a long siesta on Sunday although forewarned that there was a club match; the domestic aide was given clear instructions to say that I was not at home. Mike turns up at our porch and the domestic dutifully informs him that she was asked to say that I was not at home. 

He charges into the house yelling, “Where are you hiding Mr Anthonisz? I’ll give you 10 minutes to get ready!” He had a simple cricketing philosophy: ‘Put the best side available on the field and play with a winning mindset’; the SSC trophy cupboard gives ample testimony to this fact. Surely this would have rubbed off his portly prodigy Arjuna who won the world cup in 1996 for Sri Lanka… We are going to miss his booming and encouraging voice that would ever so frequently ring out: “Come on SSC!” The ground staff of the SSC revered Mike, and whatever Zoysa mahattaya said was always the last instruction they would take on pitch or ground preparation.

Whilst, Manique and his daughters were his pride and joy, cricket and SSC was his second home, followed closely by his passion for the tea industry – Lipton’s as the trade knew it was ‘Michael’, he was fiercely competitive albeit, a fair and equitable person after the dust had settled. Mike’s influence on me was threefold; Cricket, Tea and in more recent time the Church. 

When it was time for my work-life to commence, he could not give me a job at Lipton’s, but in later years I gathered he had told Lalith Ramanayake Tea Director of John Keells Ltd., that he could employ me, but would need to release me when there was an opening; three years later Liptonian Roderick De Zilwa migrated to Australia and the opportunity was created; there were 250 applicants from the tea trade for the job, but I had the edge that none could match; cricket, SSC and the broker who had visited Lipton’s the most carrying information samples at the behest of a boss who surprisingly always obtained a higher price on comparative marks when selling the JK Ex Estate catalogue!

Mike would ensure that a good tea always got an above average price at the tea auctions; this no doubt incentivised most superintendents hailing from the Western and Uva slopes to make a good cupper and build lifelong friendships with a man who lived by his credo “A good tea deserves a good price”; suffice to say he did get into trouble a few times with clients and bosses for going beyond the limit! 

Tasting the same tea thrice over was a bore, but that was Mike’s work ethic, much splitting hair on whether the tea was smokey or had methyl salicylate added was the norm. As reminded by my friend and colleague Ayendra Jayasinghe, he would walk into the office each morning saying, “What’s the good news,” and that put everyone around him on a positive footing. 

The sterner side though was his quick temper and boy did we know to keep away from the firing line! One such incident was when he verbally sacked Shamal De Silva, one of the young tea tasters, over an out of office disagreement. Of course Mike never meant to carry out his threat, but Shamal taking it seriously applied for a job in a bank and landed a higher paying job fairly quickly with his multinational company experience. Mike went as far as going to his home and speaking to Shamal’s parents to convince him to stay on. Stay he did and working together in the tea trade at the time of his untimely demise. 

Given the opportunity to concentrate on the value added side of the business gave me an opening to get away from tasting copious amounts of tea and aiming at a spittoon for half a day, which I gladly accepted. This was a short respite though, as Michael sat me down one day and said, “I have a job for you that you can’t refuse.” The brief was short and to the point – “Got a problem with managing the Unions and Productivity at the Mabole factory. I want you to go in, ‘make it or break it’.” 

I accepted the challenge in reverence to the man, who had trained me never to take a step back, so much so that I created a two-month strike after two days in the job, Michael and the Unilever Tea Division Board stood firmly by my side and with the help of the home-folk chasing the strikers back to work, all was well with an equitable production based incentive scheme introduced. 

The teabag production capacity of the factory grew from six machines to 50 in a space of two years – most of the machines purchased were without capex approval and this was unthinkable in a Unilever set up, but Michael found a way. The factory produced half of the Eastern European countries requirements when the markets opened up in 1996-1999 a whopping 4,000 tons of teabags up from a mere 100 tons of total value added exports per annum. 

With these successes Michael’s vision was to produce the entire Lipton Yellow label teabag requirement for the Middle East of 8,000 tons per annum. Unfortunately one way looking labour laws that justified the downing tools at the drop of a hat and inconsistent government policies on the import of teas for value addition and re-export put paid to this project, Sri Lanka’s loss was Jebel Ali’s gain – this pained Michael who was a vehement critique of inward looking policies in a pseudo open economy – The ‘Tea Hub’ concept and Tea Auction Automation linking all the stakeholders were two of his bucket list projects that got little support from the trade/industry. 

The years rolled on and Lipton’s lost its former glory, the ‘Unileverisation’ was surely a telling blow on Michael who naturally being a man who called a spade a spade was looked upon as an inconvenience by the many European Chairmen of Unilever Ceylon; on one occasion he warned me of their evil intent of drawing managers to their masonic lodges and to keep away from such invitations – I’m richer for his advice! 

For a brief period of time Michael and I tried hard to get six RPC’s to pool their might in funding a common export tea brand, but sadly this too fell by the way as most of the stakeholders seemed comfortable with their lot, JKH supported his quest for a time and Fresh Thoughts/Ran Kahata were two brands that made a few waves for a time until, in their wisdom pulled the plug on the project. 

A unique distinction was his achievement as chairman of the Colombo Tea Traders Association, the apex body of the industry for 14 tenures during the period 1983 to 1999, a record that will stand unbroken at least in my lifetime. His leadership qualities were unquestionable, and the achievements under his stewardship were many including his resolve when serious challenges were posed by the JVP uprising and the LTTE conflict, the auctions continued to be conducted without a break, despite the threats and consequential dangers.

Michael was bestowed the singular honour of Honorary Life Membership, conferred upon him by the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association, for his service and contribution to the Association and the tea industry. In August this year, as a tribute for the admiration in which the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association held Michael, he was invited as Guest of Honour at the iconic event of the 125th Annual General Meeting of the Association. 

It is ironic that, in his address at this event he said, in the context of the launch of the ‘Ceylon Tea Road Map 2030’, which had taken place earlier that day, “I do not know about any of you; but I shall certainly still be there 10 years from now.” Knowing Michael, I am certain he will be present in spirit, said Michael Tissera delivering a commemorative address in tribute to an illustrious 53 years with the industry.

The final phase of Mike’s life was probably his best, when he dedicated himself to the work of his Lord and Master, an almost unthinkable change that I was fortunate enough to witness. As it was with Mike he went head first into projects that uplifted the less fortunate in our community; what he hated was the propagation of racial and religious discord by self-seeking politicians and never afraid to voice his disdain. The church care and concern and reconciliation with those affected by the 30-year conflict, rebuilding houses, attending to medical needs, finding them jobs were Mike’s pet projects. 

He also enjoyed working with the youth of the church encouraging them to reach out to help those in camps and to teach in preschools in the north and east. I learnt of places called Kaively, Puthukudiyiruppu when he talked about his travels to former war-torn areas, with boyhood enthusiasm. Pastor Colton played a big part in giving direction to his life, but in his own admission the time the penny really dropped on him circa 1995 when Eran was preaching about Paul and Silas and how they praised God in a hopeless situation in prison, and it dawned on Michael how blessed he was; from that day he decided to follow Jesus and there was no turning back. 

One instance he related the story of how Druki Martenstyn and Prashanthi Goonatillake went along with him to Jaffna during the peace accord in 2002 to reconcile with the war widows there, with tears pouring down his once stern face, repeatedly saying, what a sad plight. 

In 2013 he dedicated two years of this life for church work; however, after a couple of months he got a call from the Board of Control for Cricket asking him whether he could take on the manager’s job. He had approached Pastor Dishan who, after two weeks of intercession said he could take on the role. From 2013 December to 2015 April Mike was doing what he loved best, albeit this time he had the power of prayer firmly on his side, the Sri Lankan cricket team did him proud winning the Asia Cup, World T20 and both away tests and one-day encounters with England.

The day before he passed away, he hosted a few of us fortunate to be called his close friends for a pre-birthday dinner at the SSC; Cristo Dias one of his closest schoolmates related a few of Mike’s exploits on the rugby field where he won 1st XV colours in 1964/65. STC apparently lost just one match and that due to the indiscipline of Michael who shouted ‘Adho buroos’, just as the penalty kick was taken by Rodney Patternott; he missed the kick and the stern referee re-awarded same which for Michael’s bad luck was converted. He also goes on record for tackling the referee and later blaming it on poor eyesight and visibility. As we parted that evening he shook my hand unusually firmly before saying, “God bless, take care.”

Always be best of friends, wish the good times had not ended so soon,

What happy times and precious memories,

Though our lives go in separate ways our thoughts are still the same,

One day soon we’ll meet again and until then always remain best of friends…