Mooryati Soedibyo, from court to cosmetics

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Mooryati Soedibyo, 72, left the palace of the ancient rulers of Surakarta behind her only to be crowned queen of the sprawling kingdom of Mustika Ratu, the blue chip cosmetics company she founded three decades ago.

Born in the Surakarta court under the rule of Pakubuwono X, her maternal grandfather, Mooryati's entire childhood was spent in the lap of his royal highness where she learned all the customs of court life, including classical dance, cuisine and the concept of correct clothing.

However, as Mooryati grew up, she was determined not to let her feudal past paralyze her. Instead, she used all the lessons learned in the traditional surroundings of her childhood to enhance her adult life.

As a child, she recalled disappearing into the royal kitchen to watch the army of servants prepare herbal concoctions called jamu to keep the women of the palace healthy and beautiful. She made friends with the herbalists and asked questions about the recipes.

It was her curiosity as a child that helped her to set up a multimillion dollar cosmetics business later in life, although she says the initial intention was not really to do business. She was 45 years old and her four children were grown up. She had already used a lot of the jamu recipes on herself and her family. Plastic surgery was not popular at that time and looking at her glowing complexion, as soft as a newly born baby's bottom, all her friends wanted the same concoctions for themselves too. She found that the most in demand was an energy drink made from turmeric, tamarind and palm sugar.

This was also the period when everyone was becoming a apprehensive of popping allopathic pills and the slogan "Back to Nature" was fast becoming an alternative to both health and beauty. As the orders increased, so did Mooryati's adrenalin. Soon, she moved her activities from the kitchen to the garage, much to the horror of her husband who found his car parked outdoors one day.

But Mooryati was already high on the Rp 25,000 profit she had made and she refused to be intimidated by anyone. She hired five people to help her as she shopped for more herbs and bottles. Around 1978, a large number of women had started to work outside the home. Drinks in a bottle were no longer convenient for them. As soon as the next profit installment poured in, Mooryati bought a small machine from Taiwan and parked it in the garage to enable her to turn the same concoction into powder and put it into capsules, for the convenience of the newly emerging battalion of working women.

Her products now included an energy drink, shampoo made from rice straw and hair oil from coconut. She had 50 helpers. Business was booming and she was feeling on top of the world. That is until her husband appeared on the scene once again threatening her to immediately choose between the jamu factory in his garage, or him.

Mooryati chose the husband, of course. She checked her bank book and realized she had enough money to buy land far away from the home so that the family could return back to their much shattered privacy. Today, Mooryati has over 3,000 employees and has diversified into producing hundreds of units of jamu in the form of drinks, powder, pills and capsules and hundreds of units more of cosmetics covering hair, body and facial care, and makeup.

Her products attracted further attention after she succeeded in getting the late Ibu Tien Soeharto, wife of former president Soeharto and a cousin of Mooryati, to inaugurate her gleaming new factory.

She runs two spas and has created over 50 products just for treatments at the spa. Recently, she signed a memorandum of understanding to supply skills as well as products to spas soon to be opened in India, Egypt and London. At home, countless Indonesian women have been trained by her in beauty care and are now economically independent, practicing beauty care either from the home or at salons.

Her future plans include a book on the meaning of clothes worn in the palace by women of different age groups according to their status and hierarchy. She wants to train more women in the ceremonies performed on different occasions like weddings and the birth of children and also to pass onto posterity other aspects of Javanese culture like the language, poetry and songs that may soon be lost to modern Indonesians. Much as she would like to see traditions preserved she also hates the thought of being crushed under the weight of one's past.

"What I learnt in the court as a child is very precious to me but I still wanted to get out of the palace and be part of the larger world. To be able to breathe freely, to travel and to earn money," said Mooryati, who described her life in the court like life in any court anywhere in the world at that time. "Life was very strict. All the girls were educated in a special way and totally segregated from the menfolk.

"I always had an escort wherever I went, even to school. We had to seek permission for everything we wanted to do. The gates to the palace were closed at a certain hour and there was no question of receiving private letters without them being first read by the court censors. Today, I can smile about these customs but life was too ceremonial for my liking. I often found myself feeling very sad," Mooryati said at a recent interview held at her plush penthouse office in the high rise Mustika Ratu building on Jl. Gatot Soebroto, Jakarta.

Marriage

The toughest moment in her life, perhaps, was her stubborn resistance to a marriage to a prince who already had four mistresses. For seven years she was engaged to this prince before she triumphantly returned the ring back to him, relieved at the thought that at last she was free from having to share her love for a husband who had so many other women in his life.

At the age of 28 years, Mooryati had fallen instantly in love with Soedibyo, who came not from a feudal family but one of educated professionals. "He was introduced to me by my cousin at the airport. He was a Christian and was educated abroad. He was not decadent in any way and was extremely supportive of everything I did."

There was a time when other members of Mooryati's family did not understand what she was doing with her life. Some thought that she was just too greedy to be doing business. "Is she not satisfied with what her husband gives her?" was one question that made the rounds for many years. After all, in the Javanese court culture, it is not considered very respectable to be involved in making money, as wealth, people and power are all supposed to flow on their own toward royalty.

But Mooryati had already tasted the sweet fruit borne out of one's own sweat and toil. She was happy to have made it on her own. She enjoyed the freedom of being able to make her own decisions, to be so much in control of her life.

"By that I don't mean I neglected or stopped loving my husband or children. Because I was happy with myself, I took greater care of my family," said Mooryati, mother of three daughters. She talked fondly to her daughters about her life as a princess but has brought them up completely different. She encouraged her children to speak their minds, but politely so, said the soft- spoken Mooryati who is said to seldom raise her voice to get things done.

The daughters have chosen their own profession and were educated abroad just like their only brother, Djoko Parmiadji.

What she does emphasize always to her children however, is that freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility. And this lesson taught by the mother helps children all their lives to face various trials forced upon them by life. For example, Djoko, a civil engineer, had to fight to clear himself of corruption charges leveled against him when he was employed by Citra Marga, a toll road construction company owned by former president Soeharto's eldest child, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana. Along with several other people, Djoko was accused of being involved in swindling funds allocated for the construction of the Tanjung Priok-Jembatan Tiga-Pluit toll road and the southern section of the Pondok Pinang-Jagorawi toll road.

For Mooryati, her motto in life has been responsibility combined with hard work. She feels that more women will make it to powerful positions if they remain united and help those less well off than themselves.

"It is not a conspiracy by men alone. It is as much our own competitiveness and extreme distrust of each other that is also responsible for the backwardness of the majority of women around the world," concluded Mooryati before saying goodbye to The Jakarta Post and hello to the next guest in line.