January's visitors to India have returned home to London and Paris, leaving Delhi to grapple with the reality of a windy winter.
For the last few days there's been Carla Bruni to think of and read about (one particular piece by a British journalist on how he once went to interview the French president's current girlfriend and she received him, topless, at the door has particularly titillated our voyeuristic instinct).
At least Nicholas Sarkozy went to the Taj Mahal, even if he was alone. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, didn't even have time for that. The dour Scotsman was the perfect advertisement for a country best known in colonial times as the nation of shopkeepers.
The flamboyant Frenchman, on the other hand, so flaunted his missing mistress that even his offer of nuclear cooperation with India was seen to be a self-serving one.
That's the problem with the French. They don't believe in rules, which is delightful most of the time, and allows for a certain je ne sais quoi absent in most capitals.
So when they bend those instruments of order, of course with local help, just as what happened with the Eurocopter deal - and still don't win the contract - then the tendency to cry foul is particularly strong.
Seems Sarkozy felt the rebuff pretty strongly. Here was the Indian establishment, an all-knowing smirk firmly on its face, telling the French that Carla Bruni, the president's girlfriend was most welcome in India, only, if you please, could you tell us what her status would be so that we can give her the appropriate bedroom, car, protocol?
Only weeks before, India had cancelled the $600 million Eurocopter deal for the supply of 197 helicopters for the Indian army, that was supposed to have been a highlight of the French president's visit as chief guest of India's 59th Republic Day ceremonies.
A miffed Sarkozy got his own back when he told a high-profile business conclave in Delhi that he hoped, India would keep its word and not cancel any other decisions in the future.
Perhaps he was desperately hoping to distract the media's obsession with his love interest as well as the French banking scandal by taking home this lollipop.
Nuclear deal
The French president's visit, as well as that of Brown before, are perfect examples of how the best laid plans of men are apt to go awry. When Sarkozy was invited by New Delhi as early as September last year, the idea was to have him participate in the pickings of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
By January 26, according to the script, the deal was to have already been cleared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Both the British and especially the French would have expressed pleasure at the idea of rubbing shoulders with India at all the high tables. The nuclear order, put into place in Yalta in 1945, would have seemed particularly wretched with India's big foot in the door.
Apart from the Big Five, after all, India was the only country to be allowed to keep a military nuclear arsenal as well as get international help for its civilian nuclear industry. Meanwhile, the Big Five would have sworn to support India's case as a permanent member in the Security Council.
India would have shown, to all the nuclear deal's detractors, that not only the Americans, but also the British, French and the Russians were interested in doing nuclear business with India. This was not only an "Indo-US'' deal, but one which ended India's isolation and opened the floodgates to the world.
In exchange for all of the above, the French and the Russians, besides the Americans, would have been promised a few billion dollars worth of the nuclear pie. They would have, diplomatically of course, salivated at the prospect. Everyone all around would have been perfectly happy.
Alas, it was not to be. When the Left parties decided, as early as August, that they would not allow the government to go through with the Indo-US deal, the Indian story was more or less over. But hope dies last. So when the Left allowed the deal to go to the IAEA, because the Congress party pleaded that that be allowed to happen, it did.
And now the Indo-US deal has reached the final stage of negotiations at the IAEA. It is believed the IAEA will "clear'' the deal, simply by reflecting the language of the document itself.
Since the IAEA is not in the business of giving nuclear fuel supply assurances, one way it can assuage Indian concerns of a sudden stop to fuel supplies, is by reflecting the content of the Indo-US deal, albeit on an IAEA letterhead.
The Indian team will return from the IAEA, any day now, with IAEA "assurances'' in the bag. The Americans, meanwhile, have already told India that it will call for an extraordinary meeting of the NSG as soon as IAEA clears the deal. India can still be on course to great power aspirations.
The big if is already beginning to shadow the corridors of power. Only if the Left parties allow the deal to go to the IAEA. Only if they allow it to further proceed to the US Congress.
Without the Left's clearance, the government cannot move an inch. If it does, the Left parties will pull support, and that is the end of the government. Not many in Delhi are in the mood for early elections. What's the point of principle, the argument goes, when there's no government around to fulfil that promise?
Truth is, this Congress-led alliance will go down in history as the government-that-could. It could have built bridges with Pakistan and tried to resolve Kashmir. It could have solved the border problem with China.
Buoyed by 9 per cent growth, it could have better overseen the implementation of employment schemes in India's poorest districts.
Subhash Chandra Bose's "do-or-die'' moment is upon India. Prevarication with the truth will only add to January's blues.
Jyoti Malhotra is the Diplomatic Editor of The Telegraph newspaper, India
