Mission Raniganj -

A voice crackled over the telephone line. Weak, but unmistakable: "We see light. A hole. We see the sky."

He had built the rescue capsule himself in a local workshop. It was a narrow steel cylinder, open at the top, with a simple latch. It was never tested.

Gill smiled. "Sardarji is here. Now, listen carefully. No pushing. The oldest first. Then the weakest. Then the rest. You will go alone. You will feel like you are dying. But you will not." Mission Raniganj

Gill looked at the massive drilling rigs sitting idle in the yard. "Yes," he said. "That's exactly what we’ll do."

Gill shouted from the bottom: "Don't pull! Push! Twist the cable!" A voice crackled over the telephone line

On the surface, panic erupted. The capsule was stuck on a rock spur. If they pulled harder, the cable would snap. If they lowered it, the man would drown in the rising water below.

Jaswant Singh Gill looked at her, then at the crowd, then at the dark hole he had just climbed out of. He simply said: "Don't thank me. Thank the rock. It held." We see the sky

And so began .

Cheers erupted. But Gill didn’t smile. The hardest part was just beginning.