The biggest change and greatest expansion came with Independence in 1947. The partition of India brought a tide of refugees, mainly Hindu and Sikh, driven from their homes now in Pakistan. Vastly swelling the existing population, they flooded every possible empty space in the city as well as the villages surrounding it. It was not until the refugees pulled themselves out of their despair that the new, the newest, Delhi began to be born.

C.S.H. Jhabvala, Delhi Phoenix City, Ravi Dayal/Penguin Studio, 2012