More On Morbidity

So yesterday I got thinking that perhaps I should construct an easy-to-use morbidity scale so that I (and you guys) can see exactly how morbid I am (and you guys are). Here's how this is going to work. I will assign numerical values to various stages of depression/morbidity/melancholy. I will then list my ten favourite books and assign morbidity values to them. I will do the same for my ten favourite movies. I will add my book-morbidity score and my movie-morbidity score, divide by two, get my average morbidity index, and see where I rank on the aforementioned depression/morbidity/melancholy scale. Readers are welcome (in fact encouraged) to see how they fare.

Here's the depression/morbidity/melancholy scale, going from lowest to highest.

0-10: Waking up after 9 hours of sleep, watching Pakistan beat Australia in a 5-test series with Asif ripping through their lineup in the decider; meeting Malcolm Gladwell, Arundhati Roy and Jon Stewart for a three-hour brunch; going to Qazi Hussain Ahmed's house and giving him a slap; flying to Denver in a private jet where you're Iverson's personal guest for Game 7 of the NBA Finals in which he goes on to score 73; getting back on your jet, flying to Seattle/Chicago and attending an acoustic jam featuring Billy Corgan and Eddie Vedder (and no more than 40 people in the place); getting back on your jet, flying to Paris where you have a dinner date with Alessandra Ambrosio in a shoo-shoo restaurant in the 8th during which she says the words "Honey, the Victoria's Secret people let me keep all the stuff from the last photo shoot, do you want me to try some of it on tonight?"

11-20: Writing a book that both the critics and masses love. Retiring and living off said book's royalties.

21-30: Drinking a chilled glass of water when you're really thirsty (I know you know that feeling).

31-40: Lying to someone's face about something important and getting away with it.

41-50: Watching Seinfeld reruns.

51-60: Getting to a light just as it turns red.

61-70: Opening your pack of cigarettes at 3 a.m., seeing none in there, slapping your head, realizing that you were meant to buy a pack earlier, resigning yourself to the fact that no shop/paanwaala is close enough to where you live /open at this time, having to wait until the next morning for a drag.

71-80: UChicago students in week 9 of the quarter.

81-90: Bangalore, 1996 (Did you guys know Jadeja's mother is a whore? No? Well, she is.)

91-100: Finding out your girlfriend/boyfriend cheated on you. With your best friend. In your house. While you were in the bathroom.

Now, to see where I rank on the above scale, I'm giving my favourite books and movies morbidity ratings. For books, High Fidelity is a 0 and The God of Small Things is a 10. For movies, Home Alone is a 0 and The Green Mile is a 10. Alright, onwards we march. Here are me ten favourite books (in no particular order) and their morbidity ratings:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - 1
2. The Plague by Albert Camus - 8.5
3. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - 9.5
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 7
5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - 10
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - 7
7. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - 8
8. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - (uh, really have no idea what to give this one. Let's just give it a 5)
9. 1984 by George Orwell - 9
10. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren - 6.5

Now to the movies, again in no particular order.

1. Pulp Fiction - No idea. Honestly no idea. 5 it is.
2. Philadelphia - 7
3. Forrest Gump - Again, no idea. It's funny, but people keep dying. 5 once more.
4. The Green Mile - 10 (I also promise that's it for Tom Hanks...three out of the first four is good enough, my friend)
5. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle - 0
6. A Few Good Men (it's cheesy now, but that's only because (a) everyone's seen in 17000 times and (b) it's hard to take any movie with Tom Cruise in it seriously anymore. But people forget how great this movie was when it came out) - 3
7. Zoolander/Anchorman/Dodgeball/any other movie with that cast - 0
8. The Shawshank Redemption - 5 (yes, it's a happy ending...but have you forgotten what it takes to get there? Plus the old dude friggin' hanged himself)
9. Hotel Rwanda - 9.5
10. La Reine Margot (I swear I'm not trying to be pretentious by including a French film. I actually really liked this movie. Promise) - 9

So what's my depression/morbidity/melancholy score? Averaging out my book and movie preferences, I get a morbidity index of 62.5, which means I'm permanently in a state of having run out of cigarettes. Which is fine, becuase I quit smoking a while ago.

Come on, twelve readers of Five Rupees! Calculate your morbidity index and compare your score with your favourite blogger's!