Delhi is a magnet—for migrant workers, students, highly qualified professionals, businessmen, politicians. The capital

since 1911, it has now, finally, started looking and acting like India’s No. 1 city. In the national imagination, it is a city

of wide roads, flyovers, the Metro, markets, and multiple opportunities.

But all this ‘progress’ and the quest to become a world-class city have also had an unsettling effect. People have been

pushed out of public spaces, lakhs of slum dwellers have been banished and the Yamuna has been overwhelmed by

sewage and industrial effluents.

Finding Delhi: Loss and Renewal in the Megacity bring together many voices, offering a kaleidoscopic view of Delhi.

It has essays on subjects such as the demolition of slums, the factories that deal with the city’s waste, the campaigns for

clean air and BRT corridors, and the difficulties faced by women. Also included are first-hand accounts that reveal the

travails of being a dhobi, a garbage collector, a fruit vendor and a maid in the megacity.