On the North end of the Bogambara lake
is the hot-bed of Kandyan history. The Sri Dalada Maligawa, the old Courts
Complex, St. Paul’s Church, the museum and the Queen’s Hotel all lie clustered
together here. And in their midst, nestled against a hillside, lies the British
Garrison Cemetery, almost forgotten.
From its establishment in 1822, this
cemetery was the designated final resting place of many British and European
greats from Sri Lanka’s colonial era. Despite the 1873 ban on burials within
the municipal limits, special provision were made to allow relatives of those
already laid there to be buried in the 3/4 acre plot. Then after Annie Fritz’s
burial in 1951, even death seems to have died to the Garrison cemetery.
But Charles Carmichael, the 62 year-old caretaker
at the grounds for the last 16-plus years, still lives. And he lives to tell it’s tale to any and all
who give ear, be it a simple gardener or the crown prince of the United
Kingdom.
Carmichael was working on a building
site at Primrose Hill in 1997. The site happened to be the home of Durand
Goonetilleke's brother. Goonetilleke was (and still is) a trustee at St. Paul's
Church in Kandy, which is the custodian of the British Garrison
Cemetery. At the time, schools, businesses and local government were preparing
with great enthusiasm to celebrate Sri Lanka's 50th independence anniversary,
and the arrival of Prince Charles of Wales for the occasion. On the prince's
itinerary was a visit to the old commonwealth burial grounds.
Unfortunately, the cemetery wasn't
exactly a pleasing sight.
"It was like a big jungle,"
Carmichael is unmoved at the memory. "Everything was down, graves were
broken. I think during the perahera time elephants had also been kept
here."
Archived images of the pre-restoration
cemetery hang in the caretaker's office, telling a ghastly story of disrepair.
Gravestones and monuments lie in
bits and pieces, all over the grounds, stealthily but violently taken over by
weeds and mana. The cemetery's British origins probably made it a
favorite site of grave robbers. And if the scores of monkeys rioting on the
premises even with four or five gardeners and a backhoe making a commotion are
any indicator in 2013, their ancestors have left them a legacy and heritage
here too.
Goonetilleke signed Carmichael on to
undo the damage. It took a whole year with 20 people working day in and day out
to restore the place. The broken gravestones had to be pieced back together,
the demolished marble and granite replaced with bricks and mortar. But they
made do. On what date? the restoration project was completed and
celebrated in the presence of British parliamentarians, and arrangements were
finalized for Prince Charles' visit.
On January 25, 1998, days before the
celebrations, a bomb-blast shook Kandy's relative isolation from LTTE activity,
causing damage to some of the city's best known historic sites. Prince Charles
never arrived, but Charles Carmichael had found a permanent job as caretaker of
the cemetery.
"There were no people around, and
it was difficult," Carmichael remembers his first few months of
work. "But I started taking walks in the area, and I got used to
it."
Carmichael's regular days are easy
going. He opens up the gates at the end of the long windy road past the Cultural
Triangle Office, at 8am, and gets to whatever maintenance work must be done.
Then he must employ himself until late in the evening, around 6pm, when he
closes up and makes his way home to his wife, children and grandchildren. In
between, he's got himself JP Lewis’s 'List
of Inscriptions on Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon’ to keep him occupied. Over
the years, Carmichael has read, learnt, filled the gaps in, and internalized
the stories of those long gone, who travelled thousands of miles over weeks and
months, lived a hard life in an alien environment, and died far from home.
Now when visitors arrive at the British
Garrison Cemetery, Carmichael gives them an insider's tour of the nearly 200 graves.
When Prince Charles of Wales finally visited the British Garrison
Cemetery in Kandy, on November 16, 2013, 15 years after the original tour date,
he did it again.
"I consider him a regular
tourist," Carmichael shrugs, "except I had change the words a bit,
add a 'Your Majesty' or a 'Your Highness' here and there!"
Captain James McGlashan was the first dead person the prince was
introduced to.
McGlashan, Carmichael says, was a
distinguished soldier who made a name for himself in many battles. There are
question about who this McGlashan really was and where he really fought, but
one thing is for sure; he was somewhat reckless. The story goes that, confident
of his physical prowess, McGlashan accepted a wager, and walked from
Trincomalee to Kandy. On the way, he was drenched continuously in the
tropical rains, and four days after his arrival in the city, forced to
accept his fate at the hands of a violent fever.
"He won the bet, but he lost his
life," Carmichael shrugs, bemused.
If the records are correct, McGlashan
was 26 when he died. And if the records are correct, many others of those
buried here died that young.
Alice Higgs, wife of Francis Wharton Le
Marchand, died on January 24, 1859, giving birth to her first child. She was
20. A brochure printed by the Friends of the British Garrison Cemetery says
John Robertson was the seventh and last recorded European to be killed by a
wild elephant in then Ceylon. Robertson was 33 years old, possibly out hunting,
when the elephant gave chase. Reports are divided but he was either killed by
the creature or all the running caused sunstroke that led to his death.
Having dwelt in these stories for years,
Carmichael has earned some license with them, and guesses that "maybe he
was fat" and just almost laughs as he says it.
Others have died at 35, 30, 27 and a William
Sydney Smith "21 years and 9 months" as one inscription reads.
It hints at a bittersweet awareness that one pays in some way or the other for
the privileges of a colonial life in the tropics.
William Elleray, surgeon, died at 33.
"How could the others have survived?" Carmichael asks, half joking,
but evidently stumped.
Worse still is a memorial stone
erected in the memory of the "five infant sons" of "G and M
Wait." But Carmichael knows the story is not as sad as it seems; there
were 14 children in that family, he says.
And in the stillness of the midday sun,
the weathered caretaker still has stories left to tell, all
heart-filling in some way.
Margaret Griegson knew at 69 that she
didn't have much time left. She was determined to see her son, serving on the
forces in Ceylon, one last time before she quit the earth. So she boarded a
ship at London, survived the trip to the tropics, and after three or four
blissful months spent living her final wish, died where her child was.
Not much is known of Oteline Rudd except
that she died at 37 years, and that she was the wife of William Rudd, a wealthy
merchant. Carmichael says our own Robin Hood, the well-known Saradiyel once
decided Rudd's treasure was extravagant enough to deserve his attention and
plunder. He imagines the robbery "didn't even touch Rudd" who, it is
said, owned whole mountain ranges and provinces in India and Sri Lanka. But as
many great men have fallen, it is also said of him that he was ultimately not
left with a chair in his name to sit on.
It is hard, very hard indeed, to imagine the richness of the history that lies buried in the grounds of the British Garrison Cemetery. Some are tales of simple folk, some of such greats as John D’Oyly, John Frasier and Lady Elizabeth Gregory. Carmichael loves telling their stories, and teaches them to 22 year-old Harsha who he believes will take his place when it comes his turn to live on the other side of the grass. But not many venture their way.
As the sun sets on the hills, Charles
Carmichael locks up the small wrought-iron gate, closes up the caretaker’s
office and prepares to leave. He walks down the windy road, freshly-tarred for
Prince Charles’ visit, making a wish: “that more people will come tomorrow.”
