India has a population of close to 900 million. Unemployment is supposed to be around 10% or so, though if gainful employment is taken into account, I am sure the unemployment rate is even more. And yet, when we want to hire office staff, it is like being in Goa with the pubs on strike.

My father has a few standard questions for the interviewees.

"Who is the Prime Minister of India?"
"Who is the President of India?"
"Who is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra?"
"Who is the Governor of Maharashtra?"
"What is the capital of Maharashtra?"

How many interviewees do you think get these answers right? Less than twenty-five percent. And these are educated, literate people, either graduates, or in their final years of graduation, living in Mumbai, which is the capital city of the state of Maharashtra.

Are you surprised? Don't be! Over a period of time, I have become convinced that a large number of people are aliterate or choose to be so. "Aliterate" is an apt word. It doesn't say they are illiterate, which they are not, because technically, the ability to read and write even one word makes them literate. It doesn't say they are literate either, which they are not, because if they were, they would be able to answer at least some basic questions related to their living environment. Aliterate implies that they know how to read and write, but by and large, don't bother to, or even if they do, don't understand or comprehend what is written.

Or maybe I am confusing issues. Does literacy have anything to do with knowing who the Prime Minister of India is? There are completely illiterate people who know the answers to all the questions mentioned above and then are "literates" who don't. I would assume that being literate implies having a general reading habit, which would mean at least a newspaper here or a magazine there and therefore an inability to escape names and figures related to our daily political landscape. Or maybe I am just assuming and implying a little too much.

Maybe it has nothing to do with literacy. Maybe it is all about attitudes and the way we deal with things. Our schooling which is all about mugging-up and learning by rote with no emphasis on understanding, our exams which only call for "memory-power" and our daily lives, where we can get by with the most minimal general knowledge. Or maybe it is cool to not know about political figures and geography, as compared to film stars and pop-singers.

Or am I just making a big deal about this? A receptionist is supposed to handle the front desk and talk nicely to customers and clients, a telephone operator is supposed to answer calls and direct them to the correct individual, a typist is supposed to type dictated words and a general purpose office clerk is supposed to be able to file things properly. In all this, where do the Prime Minister, President and capital cities figure? Do you think, a client or business partner is going to call them up and ask them "Tell me who won the by-election in Colaba last week, otherwise I'll report you to your boss?"

Maybe I should tell my father to rephrase the questions into:

"Who is the current king of Bollywood?"
"Who won the Filmfare award this year?"
"Which is the capital city of the Hindi film industry?"
"Which film star married and divorced and married again this year?"
"Who was Miss India this year?"

The person with the highest score gets the job.

Sounds glorious and luxurious, but really, it's not. First of all, it's not really our fifth anniversary. It's actually our twentieth. We got married in 1980, on February 29. We celebrate, therefore, only once every four years. And the island that we're traveling to is just off the California coast -- a quick sea ferry hop. We'll spend the night, try to relax, and then race back to the daily grind. But at least we're doing our bit to celebrate our little moment.

We chose this unusual date because we were somewhat afraid to get married. We'd both already been married to different but fine people and divorced from even more different and suddenly bitter people and we were not sure what wrecked things that first time out. Was it the institution of marriage itself the thing that wrecked relationships?

It could be. We'd been living together quite successfully for just under five years by that time, trying to blend our four children's lives and erase our own sense of personal failure. We thought we were getting somewhere, and so there seemed to be no real reason to get married. I was very happy to have my "maiden" name back and some real estate in that new/old familiar name.

But there was, of course, something missing. We're traditionalists, after all. We could never agree on what to call each other: my boy/girl friend? My partner, fiancé, roommate, lover? Nothing beats "husband" or "wife" as a handy catch-all term of endearment and concomitant commitment.

We could also not agree on when we should get married -- which season, day, month, or year? When we can't agree on something, we shelve the conversation for a while and then come back to it, armed with whatever new thinking we have individually mustered. We'd already discussed, drifted, discussed and drifted for a couple of years on the subject of "when" -- when the idea of February 29th came round. The perfect day for the indecisive and the wary.

The only respectable establishment that would marry us on such short notice was our local Unitarian Church. They handed us a sheaf of multicolored pages a week before the wedding and suggested that we create our own ceremony. And that's just what we did. I pretended I was the Duchess of Windsor and wore a tweed suit jacket and a sprig of heather in my lapel. We stood between two academic colleagues as witnesses, and the Catholic and the Jew promised to act like the sock-eyed salmon from a Native American poem.

Marriage, after all, is a leap of faith in a surging uphill stream.

And then the anniversary began to take on mythic baggage. How we celebrated would determine how the next four years would turn out. Heavy baggage for such a slight, whimsical date.

For our first anniversary, in 1984, we were awash in new money from the new computer boom as it directly impacted our new book business. We had a grand night in New York City that included a bottle of Chateau Lafitte a memorable meal at Lutéce, front-row seats at Little Shop of Horrors, and then late night disco at a place called, I think, Régine's. A lot of acute memories.

By our next anniversary, in 1988, the computer book boom had burst and we were living in the city and watching our pennies. There was a meal that I don't remember and the last dregs of disco at a place called Stringfellows. We had begun to look ahead to California.

The next anniversary was celebrated in California in grand style at the Hotel Bel Aire, and if I hadn't insisted on some very old port after the very good meal, I might have enjoyed the complimentary brunch the next day. Instead, I spent a lot of time in the white marble bathroom with my forehead against the cool, cool stone. It was a very nice bathroom.

The anniversary after that, and the one right before this one -- well, we decided to stop trying to do something and we just stayed home, had some dinner, and watched TV. That was probably not the best idea. There's low key, and then there's no key. The last four years have been quiet, and somewhat uneventful.

So this year we've decided to try to do something to mark the occasion. Something neither too extravagant nor too modest. Something that points to the future with a firm optimism. Something to honor the leap of faith that led us to this point in time.

We chose Catalina Island because of one unique feature (and a guided tour!) that was buried in the brochure ("You'll have to see it to believe it!"). It's the perfect symbol of our odd, but satisfying marriage. Flying fish.