Photo February - Day Six

Door Handle, Victoria Street, Richmond

This was found on my walk home last night at the entrance of a Thai restaurant.

I did a double take as I passed, thinking of the impracticalities of such a door handle. Okay, it looks likes the door opens out to the street, but where do you pull om the handle - like do you make a monkey grip of the thumb or do you grasp the fingers? Who else has been pawing this handle? How do they keep the brass so shiny? What is that thing in the middle of the palm? Is there hand sanitiser just inside the door for those who don't like shaking hands?

So many questions.

I've been to Thailand - I've seen the Buddhas - I know what preying hands look like - it's an interesting addition to the door. Do the restauranteurs want you to pray that the food is edible and won't give you food poisoning? Do they want you to ask for the prosperity of the place? Are you supposed to pray for yourself for not choosing one of the other hundred or so eating establishments down Victoria Street?

For those out of Melbourne, Victoria Street is the home to a large part of the Vietmamese Community. Also known as little Ho Chi Min City, there are what appears to be around a hundred Vietmanese restaurants down Victoria Street providing truckloads of steaming bowls of Pho, rice paper rolls, pork buns and barbeque pork served with picked vegetables in soft on the inside, crispy on the outside white bread rolls on a daily basis. There are also a number of Thai restaurants, the odd Chinese fusion restaurant a number of  pubs and most strangely, one of the best Italian Pizza joints in Melbourne (http://www.eloungepizzeria.com.au/) 

Still, I go back to the hand-shaped door handle, and I think of the humble handshake. Surely I can't be the only person who judges people on their handshake. There is nothing worse than a limp fish hand  presented to you. It's the squidgy fingered handshake is far worse than having some person try and break your fingers and pump your arm off. Of the person who hands on for far too long. making you wonder just what the person is after. Perfecting your handshake should be taught as a rite of passage.

This door handle would give you the perfect mix of presure, movement and time holding hands. Such beautiful long, graceful shapely fingers are possessed by the hand.

I remember once going out with a guy who had a withered right arm - the result of an injury at birth. To shake hands th presented his left hand backwards. Strange fact.

The other thing I love about this photo is the position of the 109 tram. it's a pity the shot wasn't captured a second or two later as the tram passed through the hand's index finger.

I wonder where it would go if it did.