rlsbutler (your #55),
...Still with me is the narrative of the marine pilot on the River Hooghley between Calcutta and the sea. The post was reached through a fiercely competitive exam...
They were greatly respected in the Calcutta community, and (rightly) very highly paid, I believe.
The "Plain Tale" which I can never forget is:
"At Twenty-Two" (not an age, but a level in a deep coal mine). One shift at that level is trapped by rising water in the flooding mine; they are doomed to certain death; but an old, blind miner remembers from his youth that there is a place where it should be possible to break through the coal wall to reach a higher, worked out level from which it might be possible to escape.
In the total darkness, and relying only on touch, the old man finds the place; they cut their way through and manage to get back to the surface before the waters reach them.
India has vast reserves of coal; in the North there is a wide area where the land surface itself has been burning for decades; there are uncontrollable fires in the old pits below.
Danny.