05/05/2026
I remember coming home from school and running straight to the factory.
Not to play. To watch.
Dissanayake would be at the lathe — a machine he had built himself, from parts he had sourced and assembled before we had the means to buy proper equipment. He was turning curtain rods, wall plaques, barrel-shaped buttons. Nothing that looked like furniture yet. But the precision was already there. The quiet, total focus. The sense that every component had a right answer and he knew it.
That was 1981 — his first year with us. Forty-five years on, the machines are more sophisticated. The products are different. But the eye is the same. When a young craftsman joins MM today, it is Dissanayake’s standard they are learning to meet.
Some things cannot be taught in a classroom. They can only be learned by watching someone who has spent a lifetime getting it right.
We are grateful.
— Kishan Gooneratne, Managing Director
