Plan B

May 31st, 2070

Guru had turned ninety years old today. His son and daughter-in-law and grandson and grand-daughter-in-law together had arranged a beautiful party in the small garden outside their bungalow which Guru himself had lovingly planted and tended to all these years. It was going to be an evening garden party. All the trees in the garden were lit up with tiny yellow lights. The house itself also was decorated with lovely flowers. The caterers were told to prepare all of Guru’s favorite foods. The whole family loved Guru. And all his extended family was going to be there. But something was amiss. There was not a hint of joy on Guru’s face.

Everyone thought that it was because he missed his wife, Sheila who had passed away fifteen years back. Well, yes he missed her surely. Her passing away so early had been the first aberration to his plan. His plan which he was now standing and staring at in a clueless manner.

The plan was drawn out on a large wall of his bedroom on a wooden board which was nailed to the wall. There was a large drawing with a lot of notes written on it. It was the symbolic drawing of a white staircase going from the bottom left corner of the board to the right upper corner. There were four figures along the rungs - a baby, a young boy, a man and an old person with a walking stick. There were seven rungs. And below these rungs, he had stuck his pictures from his birthday on every tenth year. The last rung had one of the recent pictures that he had taken. He had taken the picture beforehand because he had planned to die on his ninetieth birthday.

It was a seventy-year plan. Below each rung was a detailed description of all that he was to achieve in those ten years. Every book that was to be read that year - ten books already planned had their names written and there was room for five new books that would be released that year. Every movie that was to be watched was chalked out in the same manner. Every country to be visited - one country per year - was also mentioned. The professional goals, financial goals to be met each year for retirement, the charitable organizations to be helped, the new hobbies to be tried, the family members to be visited, the gifts to be bought for the immediate family - everything was there.

He had followed everything to the tee up to now. Except that the countries to be visited had stopped when he was seventy-five. He could not go alone. When his wife passed away - the plan was at a risk - because she was part of the plan until he was ninety. But he has still gone through with it with just the exception of traveling. And now he was ninety and for the first time in his life, he did not know what to do next.

As a child Guru had been very precocious. He used to read a steady fifty books per year from the age of eight. By the time he was eighteen, he had a good five hundred books under his belt. And all of this stuff in his head had made him start hatching a plan on his eighteenth birthday. He took two years to complete his plan - going to the library every day searching for all the things that he was to do.

He was to start implementing it the day he turned twenty and was to go on till ninety and then stop. And so on the turn of the new millennium - the year of the Y2k - he had begun. And here he was now on his ninetieth birthday - not knowing how to stop. He could not get himself to kill himself.

June 30th, 2070

He had been sick for the first time in his life for such an extended period. Soon after his ninetieth birthday, he had taken ill. The doctors could not put their finger on any particular disease and yet there he was clung to his bed with a fever and with a heaviness that would make the sun feel dull. His family had tried various things to cheer him up and revive his health but to no avail.

July 31st, 2070

Another month was ending with not much improvement. Then one day his nurse thought of giving him a book from the presents that he had received on his birthday to try and see if he would like to read. It was the Book of Psalms - the poetic book written by the warrior King of Israel David and some others as well. He had never been a religious person all his life and had believed that he was the master of his own fate and that is how it had panned out for him. But not really he thought. I have been defeated in the end. All my intelligence has come to a standstill in that I am not courageous to take my own life.

Well, he could approach it this way - ignore it and continue living miserably or give it the treatment he gave the new books to see if he could be baited. He would pick a book and pick a random page number and read from it and if it moved something in him he would go on else would drop the book.

The book had one hundred and fifty chapters. He thought of the number that had been troubling him the most these days. He flipped the pages to Chapter Ninety and read -

Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they are fourscore years,

yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom…….

Well, that must be a coincidence he thought. Nothing great happened though but he was hooked. He had fallen for the bait.

He went to the beginning and started reading. He had scourged the Must-Read books lists back in the day and had read hundreds of books that had moved him and honed him and shaped him. This one was good as well but he had read better he thought. But day in and day out he kept at it.

He was still in bed but he continued to read. Slowly his mind was moving away from the thought of his death. He thought of his plan less often now but said this often that he was now on Plan B.

When Julie, the nurse, came in one day she found him already up and reading from the Psalms. She was pleasantly surprised and asked him all about it. Smilingly he had answered -

“Well Julie, the Plan A’s of our lives don’t always work out. But I am glad to have found my Plan B and you have helped me find it and for that, I will be forever grateful”

Julie was beaming the whole day having been thanked in that way. Over the next few months, she saw his health improve and he had started to get out of bed more often now. He had picked up gardening again and would spend hours tending to the plants. Spending hours out there he looked back on his life and mulled over a lot of incidents. He thought about the times when he had close calls with life and was saved; of the time when he wanted to end his life but could not; of his wife’s passing away in peace and his failure to understand at that time. As the afternoon sun shone brightly overhead a Psalm that he read came to his mind -

I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Why was all this happening? he thought. Why am I here? Why am I still here?

December 31st, 2070

Guru had now become used to living without the plan. On the eve of the new year this time he had no plans and as he sat he decided to pull out a diary and write. He decided to write about his Plan B. He was now writing about the things that had happened and not what he wanted to happen. He was at peace and that was what mattered.

April 30th, 2080

Ten years had passed and Plan B was going rather well. He was going to turn a hundred years old next month. His mobility was now limited and the garden work had to be looked at by someone else. But he was happy and he was looking forward to another thing - his grandson and granddaughter-in-law were expecting their first baby anytime now.

May 31st, 2080

Baby Tanish was born in the first week of May and had been such a joy to the family. Guru was especially overjoyed to have been able to see his great-grandson. But his health had now taken a turn for the worse. He had begun feeling very frail and weak but still happy and at peace. It was his hundredth birthday today and he had asked for his grandson to see him. He wanted his great-grandson to have his room after him. He told his grandson that he thought it was time.

His grandson took him in a wheelchair to the large wall which had the picture of the staircase. And the grandson who now looked excited looking at it said -

“Your plan is complete now grandpa. The three of us were there but the baby was missing but now we have Tanish as well”

Guru was stunned as he heard that. Plan A had always been about him. He never thought of the other figures as being his son and grandson and someday his great-grandson. And now there was another even deeper thought that was almost moving him to tears that were dawning upon him. He had always thought of himself as a master planner - but he had never given a thought to the Ultimate Planner - the Creator - also could make plans. And then the words which he could hardly believe came out of his mouth -

“My Plan B had been His Plan A all along and I was merely following suit”

His grandson did not understand what he meant but Guru said - “Never mind let me tell you of something beautiful that I read today ” and he quoted another Psalm before he let out his last breath -

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.