Notes 
 1. Only outward action is narrated here; Sahota does not easily approach the inner lives of his characters. His characters do one thing after another and their emotional variances are to be sensed from the episodes. It must be said that this self-imposed constraint of eschewing interiory works remarkably well here: it is the very trick that transfers some of the characters' helplessness to the reader. Denied access to these characters' emotions, we readers are forced to wonder how broken the next mishap or misery leaves them, or how small luxuries, like finding a warm bed, make them feel. There are times when the characters' apparent inertness becomes a thing of horror. Sahota develops portentous silences, and is able to deliver the sense of being inside a pressure cooker. 
 1.5. After the half of the book, though, Sahota's tendency to pause-and-reflect increases. And I'm not sure where my feelings are with respect to that. 
 2. For someone who restricts himself to outward action, Sahota is also thankfully very good with descriptions. He describes with above-expectations exactitude on multiple occasions. Here is two-sentence act in which Tarlochan, a poor man in Bihar, is taking a bath in the open after filling a bucket of water from the village pump: 
 He bathed in front of the entrance to their shack, using his old dhoti first as a screen and then as a towel. He used the same water to wash the mud from his sandals. 
 It's amazing to see a British writer being able to make this observation, especially when it is difficult to recall any Indian writers who could do something similar.