India, March 13 -- Who stole my spring? That's the question that has been reverberating in my head all of this week as Delhi seems to have gone straight from 3 degrees to 35 degrees without taking nary a breath. One minute we were shivering in our homes, with heaters going full blast to inject some warmth into our bones. And the next, we were sweating profusely into our hastily-unearthed cottons even as we berated ourselves for not getting our air-conditioners serviced in time. Honestly, it's enough to make anyone's head spin, going from the depths of a foggy winter to a blistering summer, at supersonic speed.

The sudden onset of heat meant that the tulips that had just about flowered in our parks and traffic roundabouts barely had a mom...