Defeat defeat

The other day one of my best friends visited my house. I was inside my bedroom talking to a friend of mine, who is always there for me. The one friend I can depend on even more than my best friend.
My best friend overheard my conversation from outside the room and knocked on the door. I said, "The door is open. You can come in."
He opened the door and asked, "Whom you were talking to?"
 I replied, "To one of my friends."
He said, "I could hear you talking about defeat and that you should never give up. Is everything OK?" 
I said, "No, that friend of mine. He is down and is fed up with life. He does not have any motivation to continue with his dream. All the years of hard work, he wants to give it away.
He said that he is defeated by life."
He asked, " So, what did you say to him?" I replied, "What is defeat? What does it mean to get defeated? Defeat is not real; it is just an illusion—an idea or fear of losing. See, losing and winning is real. But defeat is just a worm born in your head. It is losing well before you have lost. It is a doubt in your head. It is a daemon that would always remind you of your failures. Who would want you to give up? Because it is easy to give up. That daemon knows that very well. It is just feeding on your laziness. It is feeding on your insecurities. It is feeding on the negative things people say to you.
You can quit and believe in whatever the daemon says to you. But let me tell you this it isn't real. It isn't you. It does not even know you. You are not a quitter. Not the one I use to know. Cause you were the winner, you were the one whom everyone looked up to winning a lost match. You are a winner, not a quitter. Winner ain't quitters. You cannot even think of winning before you kill the worm inside your brain, which says you cannot do it. Who are you? You are an engineer. You are a trainer. You are a writer. You are what you want to be. So defeat defeat." I was on a roll. Anyone could hear the excitement in my voice.
He said, "Wow, that was some speech. Who is that friend of yours? Do I know him?"
I replied, "You know him very well."
He asked, "Have I seen him before."
I replied, "It is hard to say that. All I can say he lives within your best friend."
He looked baffled and said, "You are my best friend."
I just laughed.

Hrithik Roshan's defeat inspired me to write this.

Encounter with a ghost

I was chatting with a reader fan of my mine couple of days ago. Although, over the years she has become more than a friend to me. I guess more of a motivator to me.

After reading one of my blogs she said, “I had nightmare after reading your post, Don’t touch me.” 

I asked curiously, “Why so? There was nothing scary about it.” 

She asked, “Who was that girl?” 

I replied, “I am not sure. She never told me her name.” 

She said, “But she felt unrealistically real. Like I knew her. She is part of your imagination. She is Sophia. She talked to you like Sophia would have done.” 

Sophia is a character from my book. She continued, “She felt so much like her. It is her ghost that might have had that conversation with you.” 

I replied, “May be.” 

She said, “I cannot sleep if you do not tell me the truth.” 

I replied, “ I cannot. She could be as real as this conversation we are having or as fake as aliens(debatable). If you really want to hear about real ghost story that I encountered few days ago then I would write about it in a blog.” 

So here is the blog. It was after a very hectic interview session that I had returned home. Fully tired, drenched in sweat, more than half of my shirt stuck to my body revealing the athletic body that I had. It was damn hot and humid outside even though it was night. I took a bath and had a cold coffee before going to bed. 

It was around 3.00 am in the morning when I felt someone scratching on my legs. I opened my eyes to see no one at the foot of my bed. 

I thought to myself, “It must be a dream.” 

I felt someone's breath on my neck. I looked back and there was no one. I lied down back on the bed and covered my face with the bed sheet. Through the thin sheet I could see the fan, which was visible due to the dim moonlight coming through the window. I tried to look away from the darkness that lied beyond the shadows of the moving fan. I wanted to shut my eyes but I was too scared to close them. I gathered some strength and closed my eyes. 

But there was a feeling that someone was looking at me while I was trying to sleep. I opened my eyes slowly to see a figure coming down on me from the ceiling fan. I move the sheet over my face in fear. All I could see was an old lady figure with hair flowing in all direction and a bright lit face, coming down on me. She came close enough revealing her wrinkled face that had the most crooked smile I had ever seen. 

Suddenly, I feel someone crawling over my feet again. The long nails were piercing my skin and I could feel my skin coming off. I could see a young girl covered in blood crawling towards me. She looked straight into my eyes as she dragged her body with her big twisted hands. That was a devil's hand. She almost crawled like a spider over my body. I was now pinned down on my bed with nowhere else to go. I tried to shout but I could not. The old granny laughed as she floated in mid air over me. I could see the young twisted girl getting closer to me. The only hope was that her hair was covering her face. But the air blown by the fan took away the hair on her face. She had a pale white face with no blood under her skin. Her long disgusting tongue touched my face sending shivers across my body. I knew it would be a slow death and no one would know why I got a heart attack at such a small age.

“I would not die such a lame death, I need to fight back.”, I thought to myself.” Her long finger nails pierced my back and her long teeth on my neck was just seconds away from ripping my collar bone. My desperate hands moving in all direction find an alarm clock paced just above my head. I hit her on the head with the alarm clock, which takes her off guard. To be honest it was pure reflexes and I did not really think if a ghost would actually get hurt or if it could feel pain. But somehow, it worked. 

I thought to myself, “ They are in my world. This is my world not theirs. Here even gods would get hurt. No one can hurt me more than human beings. Ghost don't stand a chance in this world. 

The world where I live, where a person cuts off a child’s head because he is of a different religion, where a kid learns to fire a gun before he learns to walk, where basic right like education is commercialized, where politics has killed humanity in major companies. There is no value for a man's word. Even the man sitting in a highest position of your company would ditch you the moment his work is done. This is no place for a ghost who show their intention straight up. The unpredictable and cunning behavior that these cheap bosses had shown towards me, gave me the upper hand on the ghosts. 

She could not see the alarm clock coming her way. I try to move away from her when the old granny pushed me back on the bed. She brought her wrinkled face close to mine. I could see that she had bitten off her lower lips. I smiled to myself , my previous delivery manager Vicky Goda and the Hitler client manger Fredu Peekerson looked much worse in my head. You don't scare me . If you don't scare me, you ain't going to kill me. I am not getting a heart attack.” I started to imagine her as my delivery manager. Instantly, I was laughing holding my stomach. A thin clown face on such a fiery ghost was really funny and Hitler Fredu face on a tiny young girl really brought a smile on my face. I think she could read my mind because I could see fear in her eyes. Even she could not have imagined such a scary face on her body. Yes, I was bashing my delivery manager and client manager with all the willpower in me. I am sure my delivery manager would be wondering why I laugh a lot at him these days. His looks tell me everything as if he is confused to see me smile at him. He must be wondering why is he smiling at me when all I have done is bad for him. He does not know what I recollect when I look at him. 

Anyways, it must be my vision of her and my laughter that she lost her grip on me and started to fade away. This time it was my time to retaliate. I hold her hand and did not let her go. I said, "Where are you going disturbing my sleep?" The little scary face girl tried to bite me on the hand to loosen my grip on the grandma but it did not help. I was very determined to whoop her ass. I said, "Come here you devil son of a b....” Let me kick your ass, my delivery manager looking ghost and tiny little Hitler client. I still could imagine his face on her. I rolled my fingers into a fist and punched on her face. I could see her head bounce off her body and that is when I opened my eyes and woke up. 

I looked over my arm and laughed, "Damn, it was a dream." I looked at the clock and it was 8.00 am. I went to take a bath as it was really getting late for me to go the office. But her face, especially the old lady's face I could not forget. I opened the shower when I could feel someone's hand over my stomach. It was really scary. I knew the only way to make it funny was to imagine my delivery manager's thin face on the old lady's body. But, somehow it was not working in broad daylight. She was way more funnier during night. I just rushed out the bathroom taking a quick shower. Especially, after feeling someone's breath on my shoulder. I put on my crisped black pants and neatly ironed maroon shirt. I called a cab as travelling was making me go nuts. I got a call. I picked it up. I could hear a very troubled voice saying, “I will get you. You are mine but I need to kill you before that.” I looked back at the mobile and realized the call got disconnected. I looked up in the calling directory and the last call I got was the day before that. I really knew that all of this was just my imagination, nothing was real. I don't believe in ghost. So I just thought the dream is just being replayed in my brain. But getting over the call was not that easy. I got a message saying your cab has reached your place. You need to aboard within 3 minutes. Then it was time for me to do the most difficult thing. To find a pair of socks having the same shades. I usually wear two socks of different color. Of course, I  try to match their shades as close as possible. I rolled up the socks and as I was putting it on my feet, I could feel scratches over my feet. My feet had scratch marks all over it. I thought to myself, “ Damn that little girl.” Well, I am not sure if it was me just scratching my own feet in sleep while seeing a dream or it was a ghost. Whatever it was, it felt real.