this new year is yours

one of the nicest mails i have recieved in the glut that welcomes in the year is this one from srirupa -

This new year, compatriot, is yours.
It was born of you more than of time. Choose
the best of your life and surrender it to combat.

This year that has fallen like a corpse in its tomb
cannot rest with love and with fear.
This expired year is a year of sorrows that accuse.
And in the hour of festivity, in the night,
when its bitter roots break away and fall
and another ignored crystal rises to the void
of a year that your life will gradually fill,
give it the dignity required by my country
and yours, this narrowness of volcanoes and wines.

-- Pablo Neruda, "You Will Struggle"

this year that has fallen like a corpse in its tomb....

any resolutions for the new year?
only the usual -
- be more organised with life/work.
- not to forget to brush teeth at night.
- get into shape to cycle from kabul to kolkata, come november.
(don't know whether i'll stick to the other two, but this one i am so working on!)

maxims?

only the double whammy that used to be at the bottom of every mail i sent out as bulleh shah...

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
- Dilbert

Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
- Walter Benjamin