I usually connect novels set in India with magic, colour and vibrancy. This book certainly started out that way, but as you read further a new gritty image of the country appears. It is dark and it is desperate. Balram is mostly a likable character (albeit a murderer) whose situation as a mistreated and unappreciated servant sees him spiral out of the "Darkness" and into the "Light." Is it social justice though? What is the price of freedom?