Education is seen as a ticket to freedom, to 'bas ye karlo phir sab mast', is never said aloud but always hinted at. "To study, to learn something about the world that could be used to earn some money — that was the only to escape the pettiness of Muzaffarnagar".
It was Education that took these characters places, leaving them only as pieces of this town that appeared in these stories. Muzaffarnagar always appeared in mid way journey, as if the town was on a journey too. The town in these stories doesn't appear depressing, callous - yes. In this regard it's very different from The Book of Dhaka or Milk Teeth.
The last line of the last story is given to the thought of a character. "This town is shit, she thought, and smiled." These characters never seem to stay, neither in Delhi nor in Muzaffarnagar, but neither do they ask the question of belongingness. These characters in fact seemed to fight belonging to any place. If they stay, it's only en route to Muzaffarnagar, dealing with phenomenon of 'not being anywhere'. They never take sides. They are vexed that the Hindu-Muslim card should be played on them. They are angry. But that's that.
"As she cycled homeward, she thought of how going away from Muzaffarnagar to Delhi had primarily been a movement away from a small town to a bigger one, the kind of movement that every one from her generation (and education) in Muzaffarnagar had to undertake. But over the years, her settling into a life in Delhi had taken her away from the otherwise important people in her life, the ones who had continued to live in Muzaffarnagar — her parents"
With an all knowing narrator, this all seeing voice is uncomfortable. You may seem to know these characters, could even predict the twists and turns in the stories, but what you can't see coming is their futures. At the end of each story, I felt that these characters took the control from you & escaped with it. You are left to mull over what would have happened. I wish I could see more of Daanish Alam and his side of the story, stories of Kanu, Anjana. My favourite scene was an interesting 'shit connection' in "Compassionate Grounds". What took my breath away was "Reasonable Limits".
Unable to know what was working for me, I finished reading the book in two sittings. It's compelling, it's attentive.