About time the UN finally came up with a new measure of national progress that is based not just on GDP per person but also on how happy a country feels at any given time in its history.
To give credit where it's due, the original idea of measuring national bliss emanated from none other than King Jigme the Glad who reigns over a country that has achieved one of the highest per capita happiness on earth, a feat he accomplished by making about 100,000 of his people grossly unhappy.
America is another country that takes its national motto ('Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness') very seriously indeed and it has been doing this by making people in the rest of the world pretty consistently miserable for about half a century now. We in Nepal are not so selfish: we take pride in being able to make others happy even if it means being temporarily sad ourselves.
The Gross Domestic Glee Index is just one of the ways to measure a country's well-being and while we may score pretty low in it at the present juncture, there are other areas of national endeavour where Nepal is secretly forging ahead of the rest of the world. For example:
Toilet Seat Index: Few countries in the world have the density of shops selling bathroom fixtures as we do in the 200m stretch from Tripureswor Crossing to Teku. The choice of toilet seats is particularly staggering and points to a burgeoning standard of living as the nation progresses from squatting to sitting position. At this rate, we will soon be all standing at attention.
The Bagmati Olfactory Ratio: Square root of ambient hydrogen sulphide concentration at Bagmati Bridge divided by wind speed multiplied by seasonally adjusted Sewage Retention Factor rounded off to the nearest decimal point. With such a meticulous formula, it is no coincidence that there is a strong correlation between the NEPSE Index and the Bagmati Olfactory Ratio. In other words, if the smell at the bridge is really bad you can be sure the stock market has gone up.
Casino Coefficient: When it comes to risk-taking and gambling on our future no other country comes even close to Nepal in the game of National Russian Roulette. Even Singapore is now imitating our success and following the same development model in a high-stake game of one-upmanship at Sentosa.
Instant Noodle Quotient: In terms of per capita consumption of instant noodles, Nepal is now way ahead of its closest rival, Thailand. However, combined with the trade-weighted Noodle-Beer Belly Composite Index we rank even further ahead and have surpassed all East Asian tiger economies put together.
Freedom Benchmark: Contrary to slanderous reports about curbs on freedom Nepal ranks fairly high in terms of the liberty to break the law. Generally, the top brass can run red lights again now that Baba-san has left the country, bulls have freedom again to be middle-of-the-roaders outside the Supreme Court, anyone can take over from the right or left it doesn't matter, there is total freedom to make U-turns again on Darbar Marg and driving recklessly on the wrong side of road on the Mahendra Highway is perfectly legal.
