Truth be told, I didn't hear a squeak out of Shabnam even in the next ten days. But I couldn't take the flight on 5 December. That's coz a very weird thing happened on 3 December. I was heading to the bank to convert my rupees into dollars. Leaving my wallet in the guesthouse, I had put all my cash, my mobile and my passport in a money belt around my waist and was just about to cross the street when I saw a huge crowd of people marching towards me. The procession was led by the most frightening girl I'd ever seen. She had a face as ugly as a mud fence. To top it all, she was blind as a bat and walked with the help of a stick. Following her were three people all wrapped in white, looking like ghosts. Behind them was a guy in an all-black skeleton costume. And behind this party was a whole group of young people, dressed like students. They held up placards with the title 'CRUSADERS FOR BHOPAL' and chanted slogans like 'We demand compensation' and 'Do or die'.
The procession stopped very close to where I was standing. The people in white lay down in the middle of the road, pretending to be dead, while the skeleton guy danced around them.
'Are you guys celebrating Hallowe'en?' I asked a young lady in jeans and slippers with a cloth bag hanging from her left shoulder and a big red dot on her forehead.
She looked at me like I was some kind of vermin. 'Excuse me?'
'I said is this the Indian version of Hallowe'en? Back home we celebrate it on 31 October. But why do you folks need to ask for compensation like this? Don't they give you chocolates and sweets here?'
She went wild. 'You think our protest against the worst industrial accident in the world is funny?'
'Hey, hey, hey, don't get your knickers in a twist!' I tried to calm her.
'Are you insulting me, you swine? You must be on the payroll of Dow Chemicals!' she screamed at me.
'Look lady, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of this Dow dude. You're barking up the wrong tree.' I threw up my hands.
Another student, a young guy with a goatee, tapped me on the shoulder. 'What did you just say? Did you call my colleague a dog?'
A third guy, with a weird hairdo, who looked meaner than a striped snake, snapped his fingers at me. 'Aren't you American?' he asked.
'Yeah, I'm American,' I replied.
'Hey! Looks like we've got the son of bloody Warren Anderson here,' he shouted, and caught me by the scruff of my sweater.
'Come on, give us our money,' a man in dirty kurta pyjamas demanded.
'Yes, we are not going to wait any longer,' the guy with the goatee snarled at me.
'No, guys.' I shook my head. 'I'm not going to give any money. This is not how you should be trick-or-treating.'
'The bastard won't part with his money. Let's teach the bloody American a lesson!' the weird-hairdo guy shouted and the crowd pounced on me like dogs on fresh meat. The men started beating me up. The women began tearing off my clothes. I tried to fight them off, but I was like a gnat in a hailstorm. Before I knew it, they'd taken off my sweater. Two minutes later, my shirt was shredded, my vest was in tatters, one of my sneakers was gone and I was wrestling with a fat girl in pigtails who was trying desperately to take my jeans off. I managed somehow to ward her off. And that's when I discovered that my money-belt had disappeared.
Mizz Henrietta Loretta had taught us about the weird customs of foreign tribes. I remember she told us about the Aztec tribe in Argentina, which ate human skulls, and the Maoris of Mexico, who sold their daughters. But I didn't know that Indians also had peculiar customs, like beating up Americans if they didn't give chocolates on Hallowe'en.
I trudged back to the guesthouse looking like Shawn Michaels after the Undertaker had pummelled him in the famous 1997 Hell in a Cell match on WWF.
'What happened to you?' Bilal cried.
'I got beaten up by a bunch of loonies. All my money is gone. And so is my passport. What the hell do I do now?'
'You need to visit the American Embassy to get a new passport,' advised Bilal.
The American Embassy in Chanakyapuri was a nice building. It had a huge lawn with fountains, overlooked by a massive golden eagle. The Marines at the gate didn't seem too happy to see a fellow American. They told me to go round the corner to another building which handled passport and visa stuff.
There were two queues, one for Indians and one for Americans. The Indian queue was a mile long. Whole communities appeared to be living in front of the Embassy with their suitcases and slippers. There was a Sikh family saying their prayers. A harassed-looking mother was feeding her children. A couple of men were playing cards in the shade. Luckily there were no Americans needing visas and I managed to enter through the gate in just ten minutes.
I was frisked like a new inmate in jail. After four security checks, I finally walked into a reception area.
'I'm Larry Page and I've lost my passport,' I announced to the Reception lady.
'Please have a seat!' the lady said and called someone on her phone. In three minutes flat, a glass door opened and a tall blonde in black high heels came in to greet me. Dressed in a grey skirt and matching top with golden buttons, she looked hot as a firecracker.
'Welcome, Mr Page,' she said with a big smile and shook my hand warmly. 'We knew you were coming to India for the Nasscom Conference. It's a great honour for us to have you visit the Embassy. I am a huge fan of your work. Please come this way.'
She led me along the corridors, hips swinging like two cats fighting in a bag. Her office was at the far end of the building. She unlocked the door with a swipe card and asked me to enter.
I sat down on a beige sofa and took a look around. The room was quite large and very well furnished. There were all kinds of maps on the walls and the desk was full of gadgets with long pointy aerials.
The blonde sat down next to me. 'My name is Elizabeth Brookner,' she said, crossing her long legs. 'I'm the Head of the Consular Section in the Embassy. It's very unfortunate that you have lost your passport, Mr Page, but we'll try to get you a new one within a day.'
'That'll be real nice,' I replied. 'I gotta catch a flight tomorrow.'
'Aw, come on,' she said, patting my arm. 'People who travel in their private 767s don't have to worry about flight schedules.'
I had no idea what a 767 was, so I kept quiet.
'So what's Sergey Brin up to these days?'
I'd never heard of Sergey Brin, so I said nothing.
'You don't speak much, do you, Mr Page?'
'Well, Mom always said, don't let your mouth overload your tail.'
She looked at me again in a funny kind of way. 'Fancy me having Larry Page in my office. You know, I've been using Google for, like, ages. In fact, I even own a few shares from the IPO in 2004… Isn't it a bit hot in here?' she said and undid the top two buttons of her jacket. 'So where are you staying, Mr Page? At the Sheraton?' She batted her eyes at me and gave me a coy smile.
'Look Ma'am, I'm not-'
'My friends call me Lizzie. And here, let me give you my mobile number. You can reach me any time, day or night.' She scribbled a number on a piece of paper and passed it to me. I put it in my wallet, which was as empty as Jesus's tomb on Easter morning.