Under the Earth is a story taken from a collection of stories (Half a Rupee: Stories) by Gulzar, and offered here as an independent read. It is from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it.
Under the Earth is about a man who wakes up as his building with several floors is going through an earthquake, and he runs out to see his neighbours doing the same, everyone in a panic. The lift is not available and the stairs cave all the way under the earth as he is trying to go down. He is trapped and sure if being dead when he is conscious, and is content, waiting for the two angels as per his religion - he is Muslim - who he expects to visit him. He is most disappointed to find himself not dead after all, when he is found by rescuers after some eighteen days, alive.
The writer has left perhaps deliberately uncertain the question of which earthquake is being mentioned here, Bhuj or Kashmir or something entirely different.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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