New Delhi, April 13 -- Several years ago, during a visit to Musee d'Orsay in Paris, I chanced upon Claude Monet's work Champs de tulipes en Hollande (tulip fields in Holland), a stunning impressionist oil painting with a windmill foregrounded by rows of tulips in vibrant colours. It was a bit messy, a bit whimsical, a bit wild and entirely captivating. Last April, outside the town of Lisse in western Holland, I walked into this painting of Monet's. And to think that it was all down to serendipity.

On what was predicted to be a bright and warm Saturday morning, grey clouds hung low and a mild drizzle fell in intermittent waves as a friend and I headed towards to the famous Keukenhof garden in west Holland for a day amidst tulips. An hour ...