The huge swimming pool and sports club at the US embassy in New Delhi is the social heart of expatriate life in India’s capital, especially during the long, murderously hot summers.
Now the oasis is about to close to non-diplomats, the victim of a deepening row between India and the US. India’s government has ordered the US embassy to cease “all commercial activities”, dismaying the families who flock to the pool of the American Community Support Association when temperatures get stuck at nearly 45C for weeks on end.
India is still seething over the treatment of Devyani Khobragade, its deputy consul general in New York, who has been accused of visa fraud and of paying her maid less than a third of New York’s legal minimum wage. Ms Khobragade, 39, a mother of two, was arrested last month while dropping her children off at school and subjected to a strip-search that outraged many Indians.