Johannus Ecclesia at St. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia

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“Hosa-nna in the high-est!” the young tenor sings, pouring his life into a rounded note that swells and cascades from the balcony, reverberating through the chapel hall. Behind and beneath his voice, pushing higher, higher, rises the sound of the organ, painting, as the vocalist falls back, New Jerusalem, from the depths of its twelve foundations to the height of its radiant citadel, in all its sparkling extravagance.

And then, as Neranjan de Silva takes his fingers off the keyboard, there is a sudden silence. The kind of silence that pierces and fills the soul to bursting.

The chapel at St. Thomas’s College, Mount Lavinia is now home to a five-million-rupee digital church organ. The old instrument is on its way out and sub warden Rev. Marc Billimoria and consultant Neranjan de Silva want to be prepared for when it sings its last. But this investment is not just about being practical.  And it’s more than even simply maintaining a tradition. It’s about giving new life to a unique gift that the prestigious school is already endowed with, and helping the next generation dream bigger.

When de Silva first wanted to learn to play the organ in the 1980s, there was no instrument for him to practice on. Now, as one of the most accomplished sound engineers and organ experts in the country, he wants to make certain that those who come after him will not have the same issue. As coordinator for Johannus Organs, one of the world’s top organ manufacturers, he was instrumental in helping pick the right instrument for St. Thomas’s.

But this is no ordinary organ. The Johannus “Ecclesia” D570 is the largest standard church organ in its range, and at STC is amplified by 21 state-of-the-art speakers. If you’re close enough when the three massive subwoofers are put to work on the lower pitches, you can feel it on your skin. The sound literally shakes the church. To the expert ear though, it is much more than just the decibel output of the instrument.

“If the sound is awful, then that will be coming out of 21 speakers,” points out well known organist Denham Pereira. As he sees (or rather, hears,) it, the improved technology creates a rounder sound, much closer to that of a real pipe organ than he has yet heard produced by a digital organ in Sri Lanka. The final effect? “Wow!”

Sound quality was the first reason de Silva went for a Johannus, but it wasn’t the only reason. The previous (now older) organ at STC is also a Johannus (albeit an older model), and when it first started giving trouble, the manufacturers were exceptionally helpful with putting things right.

De Silva claims that the proximity of the school to the sea, humidity, rats, and even the magnetic fields in the area affect the state of the organ at St. Thomas’s. Repairing it is sometimes “like surgery,” he says, “soldering and taping cables together”. When he finally gave up trying to fix it and shipped the instrument back to Johannus they did the needful free of charge. But the process takes time. Even when having spare parts shipped in, de Silva says, there is a downtime of around a week.

“One day, in the middle of the service, the old one just stopped,” the sub warden chuckles, “and the organist had to come down and start playing on the piano.”

But if a similar situation were to occur, say around December, there would not be much occasion for laughter.

“Here, the highlight of the year is the carol service,” Rev. Billimoria continues. “If the organ goes off, then it’s like Christmas without the Christmas pudding, you know?”

But if it only a practical measure, why such an impressive instrument, with four manuals and 80 voices, you may ask?

As Rev. Mark points out, “this is a living congregation, this is not a performing choir. For the worship that goes on here, we want the best, because we want to offer the best in worship.”

And when de Silva literally pulls out all the stops to demonstrate, there is not likely to be much argument on the definition of “best”. The hip-hop, trance and metal listening generation at St. Thomas’s College, Mount Lavinia, has been presented with the kind of sound that can finally battle the boom-kat coming out of their headphones.

“We were so excited when we saw the speakers,” gleams 18 year-old choir leader Ashwin Shaffter. He believes the choir “worked really hard” to be able to afford the instrument, and is genuinely honoured to be their leader on this occasion.

It is this excitement, this sense of pride among the choristers that de Silva and Rev. Billimoria are most interested in. They hope to shatter the stereotypical image of the old count at his instrument and put in his seat, the tech savvy teenager instead.

“Unless the boys hear that sound and develop an interest for it,” de Silva says, the interest in organ and Anglican choral music will die down. As both he and Rev. Billimoria see it, St. Thomas’s is among the few institutions that continue the Anglican choral tradition, and they have a great responsibility to encourage it.

As the last notes of Michael Maybrick’s The Holy City fade away, the singer, Niran de Mel, catches his breath. It is only the first time he has sung a solo accompanied on this instrument, and in the sparkle of his eyes leaps the little boy from the adage, who after knowing only sticks and mud, was finally shown the seashore.

Garrison Cemetery

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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.”

Profile: Antonio Ciocia and Santore

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Antonio Ciocia first arrived in Sri Lanka in 2005, as Head of Security at the Italian Embassy in Colombo. The first four years he spent on the island were so good that in January 2011, a few months after leaving and trying to build a life in Cape Verde, he gave up and came back.

For two whole years, Ciocia scouted Colombo for the right location for a restaurant.

“It’s not easy, especially if you don’t know the place,” he shakes his head. “In the beginning I started to go by taxi, then tuk-tuk” he laughs, “then walking.”

His searches turned up nothing.

Then less than six months ago, a friend told him about the Sri Lanka Tennis Association. The administration was looking for someone to run a cafe on the premises, so Ciocia went and checked it out. It was dirty, but he loved the floor and the garden space. It clicked.

Things were suddenly on a roll, so as he began working on the renovation of the space, Ciocia got in touch with his brother back in Bari, Italy. He had found the house, but how does one run a restaurant without a chef? Ciocia’s brother had already heard about a young genius who made “fantastic” pizza and so he went to Kintamari and put the idea to Domenico Capodiferro.

Capodiferro, a third generation chef, was already in his element at a bustling pizzeria, but a matter of days later, he called back to say he was in. Santore got born.

In the two months since Capodiferro arrived in Sri Lanka, Ciocia’s introduced him to the people and places that made him fall in love with the island.  They have become close and developed a good relationship. Ciocia believes Capodiferro will be here “forever”.

Ciocia has spent a fair amount of time rendezvousing at restaurants in Rome and understands that being a chef is a lot more organizing and managing work than it looks like. He also appreciates the huge risk the 23-year-old chef has taken, leaving behind a job in Italy during a financial crisis. Ciocia takes the responsibility seriously, not just for Capodiferro, but the whole staff that works with him, and it is unlikely the restaurant will dwindle to a mere business.

Pizza is their pride, and the Italian wood-oven takes centre-stage at Santore. Their Santore, four-cheese and spicy Diavola pizzas have so far been the biggest hits, Ciocia says. They also have a comprehensive anti-pasta, pasta and salad menu including sharing options, starting at Rs.700. The pizzas come to your table piping hot with a crispy crust burnt just right, and the pastas are wonderfully flavoured.

Their aged cheeses and preserved fruits and vegetables all come from Italy. Ciocia is worried that Mozzarella will not do well travelling such distance, so he gets it fresh from Italians who make it in Sri Lanka. And when 

Capodiferro arrives to start the evening’s work, he walks in carrying bags of fresh vegetables. The young chef takes special pride in making his grandmother’s famous chocolate biscuit pudding, and the decadent cashew, chocolate Santore special as part of the South Italian desserts menu. There is obviously a lot of care and passion behind the restaurant, and this, more than the “Italianness” of it all, is what makes the food as “authentic” as it gets.

Ashok Ferry is one who is “absolutely a pizza person” as long as it’s authentic. At the jam-packed soft launch for the restaurant on October 11, he puts his thumb and forefinger together and yells “superb!” over the hubbub as he fights for his second slice of pizza. The place is buzzing.

“I am a party person. I love parties,” Ciocia smiles.

When he lived and worked in Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2009, Ciocia hosted a couple of parties ... every week. 

He remembers having over 150 people at his home once, and guests queuing in the kitchen at 9p.m. on the dot. The food was out in half an hour.

At the soft launch, people are jostling to get their hands on even a slice of pizza and prettily dressed young ladies are unelegantly stretching cheese strings across tables. Ciocia walks over to crazy-busy Capodiferro at the pizza bar and starts saying “please” for a slice when another man informs him angrily, “Hey! I was here first”.

“And I’m the owner!” Ciocia laughs.

Rest assured, it is the most relaxing place. The atmosphere is nice and the colour-tones warm. The bar is more modern and cooler, which, though it might not work artistically, is a good picture of the informality of the place. You go here for good food and fun, no pressure. There are little clay lanterns bordering the garden, giving off a soft glow in the evening. The furniture is very simple, plain wooden chairs and tables with minimal decor. Inside, the floor is the old red tile that the architects wanted to remove during renovation, but Ciocia liked too much to change. The place is just cosy. It’s easy to imagine that this is an Italian home where everybody is talking at the same time and there is too much food on the table and enough laughter to fuel the oven.

And if you’re not in for a full South Italian meal, in a few weeks, Santore will be a great place for winding down on a weeknight. The rooftop is currently bare, but Ciocia has plans for a Mediterranean bar. And there’s not much sounds better than a plain old pizza party under the stars.