New Delhi, March 9 -- Climate change is giving us unprecedented heat patterns this year. Large parts of India can expect an early "summer". During this crisis, those who can will depend on ice: for cooling drinks, bringing down fever, and storing items that need to be kept at low temperatures. Ice has a long history in India. Initially, natural ice offered succour. The Mughals carried slabs of ice from Kashmir down to the plains. During the 19th century, ice was imported from New England in the United States. It was cut from frozen lakes and shipped to India -- this is how ice reached Chennai and Kolkata. Being able to eat ice cream was a luxury then. Experiments to make ice in straw-lined pits were only partially successful. Today, amid he...