If the U.S. takes the position that "law is the law" then it should be in India too and Washington should respect Indian legal processes, the source said.

Even as Indian and U.S. diplomats negotiated at various levels in Washington and New Delhi, Indian embassy here also reached out to lawmakers to make its position understood on the Capitol Hill.

India's new ambassador, S. Jaishankar, met key members of the India caucus and House and Senate foreign affairs panels.

The overwhelming opinion on the Hill, a source said was that "this should not have happened" and the U.S. officials who chose to act the way they did were "apparently not in the business of thinking how the next day's newspaper would look like."

Though India did explore the judicial option with Khobragade's lawyer Daniel Arshack negotiating with Manhattan's Indian-American prosecutor Preet Bharara, India's main concern was to get her immunity "not only for her, but for the principle itself," a knowledeable source said.

Now that the crisis has been defused with Khobragade's return to India, the expectation is that "everybody realises the importance of the India-U.S. relations" and steps are initiated to put the relationship back on track in the weeks ahead.

And as the Americans in Delhi pine for their booze, burgers and bowling, they would hopefully remember a lesson learnt that it takes two to make diplomacy work.
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