Moods

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Strangely, the first I heard "mood" was in English grammar in my school days. 

My HM-father encouraged me to read all the English story books in our little school's little library. And I used to ask him questions on grammar for which he had ready answers:

"There seems to be a misprint here...this sentence has two 'hads' side by side"

"No misprint...it is the past perfect of the transitive verb 'have' "

.........

"This sentence with 'I wish I were' appears to be grammatically wrong"

"No...it is in the subjunctive mood"

I then mastered all the half a dozen grammar moods.

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Many times during my university teens (1960) I said to myself:

"I wish I were Linga Murty"

My classmate and benefactor Linga Murty comes from a rich and noble family. Once in a while he used to arrive driving his father's Fiat car to our department. And our HoD, Professor BR Rao, used to borrow it from him for a trial spin around our JVD College.

...Then I left for IIT KGP and then Hyderabad...where I didn't find any Linga Murties over whom I had to subject myself to the subjunctive mood...never...just happy to be myself :)

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There are "musings" called "mood pieces" like my savage satire-post: "Blowing in the Wind", parodying a popular Bob Dylan song of the sixties. It goes like this:

"That was a typical breezy monsoon morning in Hyderabad. I dragged my chair to our main balcony and was enjoying the passing show of clouds, rain-laden, dark and swiveling...playing hide and seek...mostly hide...with the pale sun trying vainly to outwit and dispel them.

Suddenly I saw a sheet of newspaper floating down from nowhere and dancing this way and that...as if falling down...but no....kicked up like a flying saucer...it hit the railings of the opposite balcony and embraced it as if calling attention to itself...but no one opened the closed doors...it got disappointed...poor thing...and flew back and up and down and found a gust that freed it from the clutches of its imprisonment...and ran away to hit and cling to the huge rock outside our fence...Hyderabad is a rock museum...and another swell drift released it...and it flew away far far into the horizon like a speck of dust...

.....................................

...Continue this crap for another two paras making up 1400 words in all...and you have a publishable item in the weekly column; "Now & Then" of a newspaper of Calcutta that has seen better days. To make sure, enclose a valid check for say a thousand rupees..."

...And after it appears, surely, take your three laptops and write three Letters to the Editor in different styles saying effectively:

"I loved gps's item 'Blowing In The Wind' enormously. It took me back to my childhood. We want more such glowing mood pieces that do not have a droopy story line. Congratulations to you and the author ..more...more"

And also enclose three checks for a hundred rupees each...

And you become a 'regular'...

https://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2014/09/blowing-in-wind-repeat-telecast.html?m=0

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Let us come to the moods of our gods and goddesses:

Lord Shivjee is certainly moody. He is so easily pleased with flattery that he grants abominable boons to asuras like our Bhasmasura, and lands himself in soup.

But he has a third eye which he opens when disturbed and incinerates Kamadeva to ashes.

Lord Vishnu's dear wife Lakshmi is very fickle in her moods:

సిరి దా వచ్చిన వచ్చును

సలలితముగ నారికేళ సలిలము భంగిన్

సిరి దాఁ బోయిన బోవును

కరిమ్రింగిన వెలగపండు కరణిని సుమతీ!

(Siri comes when she pleases

Like water into the coconut

Siri goes when she pleases

Like the juicy wood-apple an elephant gulps and shits juiceless)

Satyabhama is very moody...she kicks her husband when in a bad mood; and then kills Narakasura who is about to hurt her dear hubby.

(Unlike Rukmini, my darling wife, who is always in a worshipping mood towards her husband :)

Sri Raamji was always in a benign mood even to his enemies. But when the Indian Ocean declined to part, preventing his monkey-warriors from crossing it, he got wild, lifted his Kodandam and aimed his arrow to kill Sagarji, who then fell at his feet. Sri Raamjee forgave him but his fierce younger brother reminded him that once the Kodandam is armed, it can't be rescinded. Then the sycophant King of Rajasthan volunteered that Sri Raamji's arrow hit his useless patch of backyard . That is how the Thar Desert was born. But for this desert heating red hot in summer creating a huge low pressure, monsoon winds wouldn't flood our Bharat Varsh...thank you Lakshman!

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says that Hanumanji is always in the same mood...always... 

Hanumanji was once asked: 

"Hanuman! What is the tithi today?'

"I don't see any calendar for tithi, varam, nakshatram, rahu kalam...I only see the benign face of Lord Raam always"

"यत्र यत्र रघुनाथकीर्तनं तत्र तत्र कृतमस्तकांजलिम्
वाष्पवारिपरिपूर्णालोचनं मारुतिं नमत राक्षसान्तकम् ॥

Yatra Yatra Raghunaatha-Kiirtanam Tatra Tatra Krta-Mastaka-Anjalim
Baashpa-Vaari-Paripuurnnaa-Locanam Maarutim Namata Raakssasa-Antakam ||

Meaning:

1: Wherever the glories of Raghunatha are sung, there, with hands held over his bowed head in salutation, ...

2: ... and eyes filled with tears, Maruti (Bhakta Hanuman) is present; I salute Maruti who puts an end to the rakshasas."

But our Telugu movie-makers have fertile imagination. They came up with a popular movie titled:

"Raamaanjaneya Yuddham" 

:)

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My father used to sportively face all the exigencies that Life dealt him.

But when at the carrom board his mood was always ugly; since he couldn't fling his striker at his partner, he used to fling it at the wall.

My MD uncle who was the epitome of compassion to his patients and generous to a fault to all members of his extended family, used to wallop his only son. I saw him once kick that toddler from the front door to the backyard chasing him like Maradona  in the World Cup Football.

Then on, I was so scared of meeting him that I used to enter his house (where I lived for two years) through the back door via the side-lane reserved for the scavenger.

I myself am always in a great mood (except on full moon nights...loony...)

There are what are called "mood elevating pills".

But be careful using them.

There was this lovely cartoon in which the husband is found sitting on the blades of the ceiling fan up above, and his wife explains:

"Instead of one tablet every six hours, he took six tablets every one hour"

The best "moody" dialogue I heard was in a rare movie my son made me watch: "Hungama":

Akshaye Khanna: "kahan chipa ho merey Anjaliko bolo bolo"

Paresh Rawal: "haan haan bolungaa...lekin abhi mood nahin"

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And there are these famous prophylactic rubbers  alled "Moods" I don't know why....

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