Learnings

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.  ~Willa Cather

  

1. Life is a chessboard.
2. Falling in love is like jumping off a cliff- either you fall, or you fly.
3. Kissing someone and letting you be kissed, is not the same thing.
4. The higher you build your walls, the harder it is to escape your castle in the air.
5. If you pretend long enough, you believe that it’s true.
6. Be careful what you wish for, you might just make it come true.
7. Losing a figment of your imagination hurts more than anyone will ever know.
8. When someone tells you that they love you, don’t question it.
9. Calling someone ugly doesn't make you any prettier, calling someone dumb doesn't make you any smarter and bitching about someone doesn't exempt you from the line of fire.
10. The only thing permanent is change.
11. First impressions last
12. The Mirror is magical. It shows you only what you want to see.
13. It is impossible for us to follow our animal instinct as we have been both gifted & cursed with a conscience.
14. Reality sucks, but you have to face it sooner or later.
15. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
16. Sometimes, love and hate are so finely intertwined that you don’t know which is which…
17. "Sorry" is not a band-aid, It’s just a word.
18. When you share your secrets, dreams, desires, fears with someone, you're granting that person the power to hurt you.
19. Showing emotion is not a sign of weakness, it proves that you're human.
20. When you break up with someone, and there was nothing there to break, you end up breaking yourself.
21. Scars keep you real.
22. A man who tells you that he never thinks about sex is a hypocrite.
23. You tend to hate those who remind you of yourself.
24. You never follow up on an apology with a ‘but’
25. Revenge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
26. Crying earns you pity. Not Love, Pity.
27. If you twitch while your eyebrows are being done, there will be blood.
28. Silence DOES speak louder than words. Silence hurts too.
29. College triumphs school. Rat’s piss!!
30. If you don't believe in Happy Endings, you have nothing left to live for.
31. The day you get glasses, a bad haircut and are looking your worst, you will meet “the man of your dreams”!!
32. Hugs heal.There are different types of hugs.
33. You don't have the right to judge someone you don't even know.
34. “Not feeling” doesn't really get you anywhere.
35. Everybody has scars. Some parade them, others protect them.
36. You can love many people in many different ways.
37. Guys look hotter in shirts.Black nail polish hides dirt.
38. What was meant to be will always find its way.
39. The liquid takes the shape of the container it is poured in. Don’t be a liquid.
40. Sex doesn't complete a relationship. It complements it.
41. The older you get, the more masks you collect.
42. Friendship is an experience. The time it begins influencing or causing one’s actions, it is as good as a scientific term.
43. Sometimes to win, you need to lose.
44. Every ‘bitch’ has her day.
45. The person who arouses your mind doesn't arouse your body and the person who arouses your body doesn't arouse your mind. And if that’s an irony, so am I!!
46. A mug fills drops by drop. Don’t lose the person who holds that mug for you.
47. There is dark, there is light. There is a choice. Always.
48. The opposite of chocolate is heartbreak. The synonym of chocolate is what you like.
49. Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
50. To defeat the darkness out, defeat the darkness inside.

Learning, it's an ongoing process. Each who comes our way, teaches us a new lesson.

Learning is futile, if it meets resistance.

Learning is conquered, if it meets experience.

Learning is lethal, if it remains impenetrable.

Learning is life, if only applied :)

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

-Albus Dumbledore

No Pain, No Pleasure.

If chocolate is the best thing in the world, what’s the opposite of chocolate?

You don't know what it's like. The golden cage. Beautiful smooth grills, pretty painted nothingness, sullied oxygen that lets you live only so it can watch you die.

You want to know what the greatest hoax in the history of mankind is?

God? Close enough.

Its' fucking 'Hope' hanging herself from the streetlamps, skinning us alive, curling her claws around our dreams and giving us something to look forward to,

And then, Hope dances for us, doesn't she? Pretty Hope. All silk stockings and tutu skirts, ball gowns and football jerseys, tuxedos and leather, whatever turns you on!!

Only to distract you from the cruelty of Life while he steals you of everything you have ever loved.

Partners in Crime.

They've leeched us of our life blood, only to do it again, and again. Till we look Hope in the eye and take Life into our own hands, Till she cries a lovers sorrow and he reeks of murder, Till we are left with blood staining our hands,

And we will never know whether it is ours or theirs.

Sometimes, few are dead with Hope and in Life long before Death strangles them with his cape.

 They call it suicide. 

I blame those two, Partners in Crime.

Heartbreak.

The opposite of chocolate is heartbreak.

Resonate

The world is so much prettier.
The breeze feels more windy than exhaust fumes.
The air seems lighter than dust.
The sunlight seems more glowing than heat.

 

I can feel my skin buzz, I feel like a light bulb that’s been switched on for way too long.
Light is transient.
Touch is hollow.
Voices are distant echoes.

The music cuts into my silence, and that’s when I realize that life is a razor-blade romance.

Music is so much more refined. I can feel the strands that make the sound vibrations, tell one from the other.

You say that, I take what you feel and put it into words.
Maybe that’s because I feel it' too.
Because we vibrate at the same frequency,
Together, we’re resonance. :)

Perspective

Sweat trickles down her forehead, her throat is throbbing, her eyes bloodshot red, roll involuntarily.
Hands firmly clasping the bowl of the toilet, she retches into it, emptying more of herself with every contraction of her stomach.
In between deep breathes and attempts at making her vision less blurry, her mind wanders to happier times......

It doesn’t seem like so long ago because it wasn’t all that long ago.
Patiently, she waits for the storm to subside.
With each fresh outpouring, a part of her feels more content.
Our body and soul are supposed to be in tandem with each other, right?
So it’s imperative that her body feels as empty, hollow, and broken as her soul.

More retching.
More contentment.
More pain.
More differences. 

All seemed to be just wishful thinking.
He said, there was no time. 
She said,talking was the only way to make this better. 
He said she never understood. 
She said, he would never understand what happened that night.
 He said, he knew.
The argument was cyclical, endless.

When she looked up, she couldn't see his reflection anymore.
Instead, she saw tired, empty eyes haunting her, tear-stains marring her own soft face, hollow cheeks and a broken morale.
If she hadn't been knocked to the floor, she'd be fighting hard and strong.

It’s easy to fall in love. 
When you fall in love, you feel you’re done- and that's the sad part. 
It never struck either of them before.

When all was expelled, she looked at her phone and saw that it was not flashing. 
He made the mistake of believing she was strong.
She made the mistake of believing he cared. 

"It isn't what happens to us that cause us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens."

Silence

There are silences, as unrelenting as any other foe. Silences that encompass most  inescapable silences. It is within the gnarly grip of moments like these that we find fragments of ourselves that on most days we try to forget even exist; moments where we are selfish, sinful slaves to our earliest demons, who find solace in the fact that they are still strong, still able to posses our malleable minds.

Silences where are fears become reality, where our desires are magnified till we are blinded beyond rationality. Silence that make our stomachs knot themselves as our bodies try to starve off savage desperation.

Silences as oppressive as the eclipse; as abominable as the stormy winds. Silence that surrounds you, that crushes you until you forget how to breathe.

And then it breaks you and you remember-

That the silence was never the problem; it was what preceded it,

'the words' that wove the void.

"An intellectual silence is not failure or defeat; it is a return of a naked awareness"

The Ink of My Heart

Presuming you to be a sculptor; an artist who makes sculptures...............

Dear Sculptor,

        Its taken me so long to pen something this personal so overtly. It’s just that I never have known what to write. I have undergone the most strange feeling. I mean I know it was a passing comment long back, but it stuck on with me and it was really frustrating to not be able to write something to do with one of the most important aspects of my life! I mean, it's not that I couldn't write about you. I would've just jotted away pages within minutes if you'd given me an ultimatum. But the truth is, I would've never been able to do justice to it that way. I wanted to get it just right. I wanted it to be more from the heart than the mind. I wanted it to capture the essence of you. Not who you really, probably are. But what you are for me, to me. Because I don't think you know that well enough.

As a toddler I wasn't much of an extrovert, the way I have grown today. Earlier I'd always keep to myself in school. Neither would I talk much to my classmates, nor to any teachers. I did my work and looked forward to going home. Back home to my parents. They were always worried about me, back then.

Mum always wanted me to be in the social circles. And it wasn't because she thought I was too shy. No. She wanted it for me. She saw how restless I was. How I hated going to preschool a little more than the rest of the children my age. And there was a day when I even cried to her about it. Nothing much changed. But I felt a lot better.

She always was a source of comfort. Parents always are.

When you feel like the world is falling apart and bursting at the seams. As if there's nothing that you can possibly do at the time, but just close your eyes and submerge yourself in something…anything!! - that keeps those ‘bad things’ away from you.

Indeed, that gets your stomach in a knot. The dreaded dull feeling that's worse than anything you've ever known.

And that's when…they're there for you, those few people in your life!!

Parents; Guardians; Sometimes just one person!!

To call whom even just a source of comfort would be an understatement.

Thank you, for being “my uncertified guardian”.

I never quite understood the concept of a cloud with a silver lining or what actually is a ray of hope. For me, when something goes wrong, it consumes me. It blurs my vision. I may have changed on the surface over the past few years.

But I'm still the same person. I still have most of my old insecurities, fears.

You know what's the most evident proof of that? When we hold hands, my hands shake. They're unstable. But when I slip them into yours, somehow they stop. It's like they've found a place where they belong. And I'm not just saying this to make this post seem a little more "touchy", but it's true. It's never felt like this before. And then I look at your hands, so sure and firm. So comfortable with what is and not worried about what will become.

I think that pretty much defines us. Not so much as individuals. But more of our places in the relationship we share. You're keeping me together. Placing every little part where it's supposed to be and making sure nothing falls out of place. That ‘I’ don't fall out of place

Like a sculptor possessive about his sculpture.

The crooked, ugly, dejected sculpture that he found abandoned, but now makes it beautiful. And he even thinks that the beauty lay within the sculpture.

The sculpture would beg to differ :)

It's “you’’. The one with ‘the magic’. It has always been you.

You've always managed to capture the beauty in everything that you see. That surrounds you. No matter how asymmetrical, unfit, and shabby it is.

So what if it’s even through a lens ;-)

You do have a beautiful heart. One that turns ‘everything’ as beautiful, once it allows a place for it, inside ‘itself’.

I'm probably one of those mildly "made beautiful" things by you. I never knew or thought I was anything worth a second look until you told me so many times that I finally looked at my reflection in the mirror for a second longer and almost believed you.

It's like I've transformed slowly since I've known you. I've learned to be more of 'me' than what somebody else wants me to be. I'd gladly be whatever you wanted me to be, but I stopped trying, the very day I realized that all you really wanted was me. Just as I was.

It was oddly unsettling at first. But I came into my own soon enough. And now I can just prop up my legs in a non-lady-like way, or eat like a person who hasn't seen food in days. Or pull my hair back and wear clothes that do anything but flatter me and still know that you'll want me the same amount. That you'll still be the happiest to say that I was yours. And yet it doesn't make me want to stop trying for you.

           It makes me want to tell you every second of every minute of every hour of every day that I love you. I love you for being so selfless when it came to me. So much so that I started this post by comparing you to the most selfless relationship there is in the world; to my mother.

We never really grow out of being nine year old. Throughout our lives, somewhere or the other, we're always haunted by the fear of being unwanted; of being lonely; of things not going our way. It's only the scales that change. The emotions remain. But I know I can move on and face all of it now because you give me the strength to.

You make your presence felt. It's like I can shut my eyes and be assured that everything is right because even if it's really not, you're there.

When you tell me something's going to be right. It really is.

I'm so accustomed to knowing you'll be there that it's scary now. What will happen to me? What on earth will happen to me? Do you have an answer?

Funnily that's something you haven't taught me to deal with yet.

You know that patch of shimmering water and the skyline that we see most of the time we meet? The place where there lies the dome, the longest bridge, the beautiful waves, the cool breeze, the shimmering sun, the tall blades of grass, the occupied benches, the laughter and the cry, our smiles of joy, the horses, the rocks, love most of all.

            Now, can you imagine the water without the ever-changing-yet-constant horizon?

It would be almost soulless. The sea itself wouldn't know where it should end. What is needed for it to stop? Where it would destroy itself!

OR Even the sky without the sea? Nothing less than a deep, hollow pit! Where you couldn't find anything! Not even yourself.

That's how inseparable you are to my existence now.

I just thought you should know. The most comforting and wondrous place I have ever known, is in your arms. And it hurts to turn over on my side, in the middle of the night, and not find you there :(

           I know, I know, this is probably the most dramatic ways anybody could express themselves. But it's all that came to my mind. And to contribute for what it’s worth, I really tried my best :)

I love you. And I always will.

Yours most grateful,

Sculpture

Mask of Glass

Sit down, 'friend', let's have us a chat,

I'll start by saying that I smell a rat,

And you don't need to say a word.

Haven't you heard?

Now your mask is made of glass,

And I can see it clearly, your heart of brass.

Be silent.

Your words, cheap lies, they've polluted my mind,

A sweet-scented fog in which no one can find,

The truth.

But now the smell turns sour

In your final hour,

Like a whores' rancid perfume,

Her abandoned carcass rotting in your room.

Nothing can hide the stench.

Did your jaw just clench?

I can see in your eyes, the surprise, now the desperate plots you devise,

To escape one more time, scrambling to climb.

Out of this pit that you fit,

So well.

I consign you to hell.

And I just thought you should know,

I've laid out the victims in a row.

Their wounds and their scars,

Your unmistakable mark!

We're done. You hear me?

Through.

Take what you've stolen,

Eat what I grew.

Though none of it was ever for you.

And with every bite,

Know that you bought the blight,

On yourself.

With this verse perhaps I'm the first,

To break your mask of glass.

And it won't so much as scratch your heart of brass.

But now, I can see it, Alas.........!

# More important than having 'friends' is having "A friend".

          Its the smallest way in which one might learn the importance of quality over quantity!!

And most of us meet this choice, at some point in life. 

In this context, at any given day, the person with whom you are happy being yourself with, by default becomes more important than few rest.

          No matter how free we are in our thinking, 'loving someone' comes with its own parcels of human fears and limitations.....and even some unsaid expectations.

Human expectations, the root cause of most pain.

Sometimes, the hurt is worth it. Sometimes not.

The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.................they say, the key is to allow yourself to make the journey!! 

Live. Lose. Learn.

The Boy Who Lived

             Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a rousing & breathtaking finale to the magical mystery tour of a scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy with a lightning-shaped scar.

It has been 10 years since the boy first charmed his way into the hearts of millions and wove a parallel world for the young and the not so young.

The books too have grown like any other human.

The series bears on the heart of all Fantasy books – a fusion of both fairy tale and reality.

It reminds us that legends were not just something that people thought of for a good story, but was an attempt to explain certain aspects of the world – and in this case, wizards and witches are no different than us ‘muggles’ in their desire for an explanation

A world as fascinating as it is real -- of wizardly magic and human folly.

The epic series has allowed its “characters” to be human and to be mortal.

There were characters that have been painfully ended – characters none of the avid readers would ever want to see die.

Loss & death is experienced by all & it’s also no less tragic when it happens in literature, especially to characters we have come to know and love.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”— Yes, there lies a power beyond reach of any magic, a power in every soul, a power without which any knowledge we own remains woefully incomplete, it’s the power of “love”.

“We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Coming down to the most beautiful character of this series. The ‘character’ that teaches us to be non-judgmental. It brings to us our falters as human beings, that is, how we assume & how we believe in all what is shown to us, by our eyes. 

Severus Snape has pretended for a long time, he did what he could with a greater goal in mind & departed nothing less than the strongest & the bravest.

The man who survived all the evil & stood by Harry to find him his way to redemption – Some bonds can never be broken.The bond between Severus Snape & Harry Potter, ties the two of them so strong that each becomes the Patronus for the other.

Ron: “He must have known I’d run out on you”.

Harry: “No. He must have known you would always want to come back.”

For me, Harry Potter is not just a story about, a boy who lived or about a boy in exile who is the last hope of wizard kind; it is nothing more or less,but an aping of a global hysteria!

It stays with us all long even after the last stones unturned.

By that symbol, this majestic journey will be known to live for a long time and lure generations of children to grow up with ''the boy wizard''.

These books will always find a way to endure.

The end of the films, is not the end of me reading the books.

The real charm spread across in each of Rowling's books, will last eternally in the subliminal messages -- that love is magic; that power corrupts; that intolerance is evil.

And if you have traveled with Harry through the years, you will feel the emptiness that inevitably follows the end of a great journey.

Nevertheless, “The process is what matters, than the product. It is not our abilities that define each of us. But, it is our choices.”

You can never finish such a great read.

The lightning scar at last, has imprinted deep within my psyche. :)

The author, who bought it to me, might as well be always remembered-- for she taught me indeed - the language of ''the Greater Good".

And as I finally turn the last few pages of the Deathly Hallows once again, each time there unleashes a beautiful journey.

Indeed! A spectacular series that borrows imagery and concepts not just from literature but also from life -- it leans equally on the fantasies and the realities of totalitarianism, which is suggestive that the author is remarkably a grand plotter and the queen of chronicles!

The words inscribed by J. K Rowling have embedded themselves so effortlessly across millions hearts, which truly defines the ability of this outstanding writer to spread “magic”.

  

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’’. Proved alas!

PS: "Is this real ? Or has this been happening inside my head?" 

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real."

Carpe Diem

Home they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said;
She must weep or she will die. 

 -Alfred Tennyson

I read these lines and somehow it clicked me....What is life without loss??

It has only taught me to hold on to what I had with even more tenacity than dread losing it; or treat what I have with the utmost care and give it the most love...for who knows what tomorrow may bring...

I'm worn-out by that line....'Who knows what tomorrow may bring?'

Well, I know..

Tomorrow will bring more strength, more dreams, more people, more companions, more of healing, a stock of beautiful lines.. :) Besides, endless eternal love.

Tomorrow will bring, the realization that if I fail to become the most precious person in someone's world....

...I will most definitely be the provider,

because this heart's been tested already;

I know of its adaptability, But I'd always prefer its charity.

After all, what hasn’t killed it, only has made it stronger!! It works out somehow, always in the same pattern. The awful epiphany is that hardships continue to draw nearer in our distant tomorrows & all of us are blessed with our own valences. Nevertheless what truly defines us in the end, is how much we contain within and how much do we let go..

Ah!! But is that really enough for what tomorrow may bring??

I could drool....but.. that wouldn't stop me...

I'd proliferate through my wisdom & experiences...Meaning who wouldn't smile thinking of the stupid things, done in the past…those failure of relationships, those breaking of rules, those disregards for all good once to be had & missing it the most ever since it got misplaced.

Yes, it's better to weep, than be a living dead......

It is dull
It is windy
It is hurting
It will pass...

I am sniffling
I am worried
I am writing
I will be done.

Time is constant.
Time is changing.
Time is fleeting.
"Carpe diem  > Seize the moment , the day, whatever.............value".

To my Best Friend. .

She walked a mile in his shoes
He walked along with her
What they found, none divulged
But only time would tell.

She asked him for a little loaf,
He gave her bread aplenty.
They broke bread together often; yet
She always went hungry.
He wanted more, he always did
She yearned for quiet and peace,
They justified the distance when
Their opinions never did meet.

They thought alike, friends together
Each others sole companions
The years went by and still they met
With knowledge incomplete.

He asked her for a little book,
A little love, a little pen.
She gave him all that and more;
Two friends who shared their shoes.

The Beloved

You're supposedly the part time lover

And full time friend.

The craggy steep hill

And where the road bends.

You're the last train home

The scenic myopic route

The hand that keys the thoughts

The head that walks on air

You're the secret that I keep

The cries of the gulls

The storm, that beckons

The story, that unfolds...

p.s: As much as I have loved life as a journey, 'life' could be decoded as '5107' :)

A Java Story

I am the sugar cube in the coffee,
Like the starkness in this wicked sea,
I move up and down, round and round, in a rhythmic death dance.
Can't stay on top, Can't stay afloat,
Can't breathe below, not within nor without.
I consume me to transform you,
So I disintegrate and painfully dissolve.
I spread my sweetness like a contagion,
And annihilate myself for the greater good of yours.
So you'd sense me just as I’m gone,
Cause I had consumed me to transform you,
What remains, you'd still be known as the bitter coffee.

Where??

Here.

There's no need to hide from anyone,

I stand erect and correct all the time.

No fears.

No hesitations.

No shames.

Here

There's no one - just me,

I run around liberated, ecstatic.

There's space.

There's love.

There's acceptance.

Here

There's nothing that is portrayed unreal,

I see things plain and simple.

Sans show offs.

Sans shallow egos.

Sans make ups.

Here

There's no need to prove myself,

I smile at my face unveiled.

I am Strong.

I am Intelligent.

I am Lovely.

Here

I am Me.

An Ode to my Mother

To you I owe my existence and all my success
Every thing's for you.
You are the reason I walk, I talk, I think, I see,
You were A mother the second time when I came
And I was the child that I will always want to be
Your extreme parsimony which still amazes me
Parsimony not in love but in hatred & disgust

You blew away my mistakes, all as a puff of smoke
Me being incorrigible but never found lack of love
The invaluable time you spent on me as a mother
I never aim to pay it back because I never will be able to
Those priceless tears, the never failing love & devotion
They were never unnoticed. I admire you. I love you
You adopted my fears, healed pain & wiped my tears
To me you are the bible of forgiveness. Big and small

Couldn't have asked for more generousness from you
Can never pay you back. Neither I'm capable nor I'll try
To this ordinary child who wouldn't even love you back
The warmth you gave, the way no one ever did and will
The huge sacrifice when you quit on those small things
Those elements of happiness all which you deserved
You are my teacher, my idol, my encourager, my strength.

With numb eyes when I look at you thinking about the care
The enduring patience, the treasure of wisdom, my cushion
Being with you for all those years. Those afternoons in your lap
I missed this when you went away.
When you set yourself free from us.

You always had thought twice. 

First for me and then for the rest.

I Love You Mom :)

Faith. Hope. But most of all....LOVE !!

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. 

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; 

where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a woman, I put childish ways behind me.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. 

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

The Road Not Taken

A classic poetic expression follows a great lesson.
It's always fascinating to identify one's own reflections on life in work of great thinkers.

It excels its own limits when it tunes up melodies in numerous souls.

The poet Robert Frost is one such divine music that still stimulates life, especially in those souls where life does not get simulated either in experiencing or in expressing itself. 

It's one of the poems which I have found very comforting, hope some others find peace whilst reading the same.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

                                  

                                   -Robert Frost

P.S : To all my friends & anonymous readers, Wish you a Happy New Year! 

       May the year bring loads of success, happiness & content in the lives of all.