What impact does the recession in the West have on the Annawadian economy?

The characters in the novel all live below the poverty line in a poor slum in Mumbai. For them, finding enough food to feed them for a day is something they have to fight for. For some, working as a waiter in a restaurant or hotel is a dream and many even consider it as being a foolish illusion. The life presented in the novel is something many readers will never have to go through and the author presents the life in the slum in a very realistic way. While the overall tone is a depressing one and hopeless one, the idea transmitted is that no matter the situation, humans will always want to live. The children in the slum adapt to their new environment and even though they know that the possibility to escape one day from there is slim, they never stop dreaming. Even though their dreams seem trivial, for them they are important because they represent hope.