The Boy by the Fire

Whoever you are and whatever profession you might be in... a journalist, doctor, engineer, factory worker, photographer..., i suppose every single person will be hounded by their personal insecurities and fears no matter what their strongest qualities are. It was a cold evening and i was out with my friends taking random pictures of the junk yard just behind the Commercial Street in Ooty. The number of folks who were picking scrap at the junk yard gradually dwindled as the hours sped by. Two or three men who were left behind had begun a fire out of the rubbish they had gathered. The Boy who had been loitering around until then, settled down by the fire once it was lit. I was prepared to wait for however long it took to get a decent portrait of the Boy. The light was low, the exposure was long (despite a fast lens - 50mm , f1.8) and i was clicking frames after frames hoping at least one picture will be sharp (and without much noise) when i noticed the Boy was mumbling something. I inched closer to hear him properly when i noticed that he had started to drool. By then, i had realized that the junk yard was empty save the both of us. The workers had left for the day and my friends had moved on to another location. There i was sitting crouched on a pile of refuse (my only consolation being that i was wearing a pair of thick boots) in front of the drooling Boy with my palms clamped on to my dear little camera. Well, it wasn't my moment of crowning glory and i definitely did not show case a great deal of courage at the moment. I tried to inch away from the boy without really startling him. But after about five seconds gave in to the fear in my by-now-pounding-at-100km/hr heart and ran for life without looking back until i was safe amidst the crowd and the traffic on the main road. For all i know, he must have been quite harmless. He might even have been ill. But like someone said, fear can be quite unreasonable and sometimes, even dangerous.