If you have not read Rohinton Mistry earlier, tthis is a good place to start. I’d read Such a Long Journey before this - and was a little daunted by the volume of A Fine Balance. But once I started I just had to read through it even if it was a few pages at a time. The story is set in Bombay - but moves across to various parts of India and does not restrict itself to Parsi society alone. Its colurful and brutal, gross and yet celebrates the small things in life. And the truth really hits you. Sometimes it starts to sound a little exaggerated but you immediately realise how easy it is for life to take these crazy turns and have the ups and downs that Mistry so easily captures within the span of a few paragraphs. There are numerous bit characters with nobody the hero/heroine in particular - yet each character is complete and has a different story to tell about life.
A Fine Balanace is the confluence of many worlds - each rather unreal to the others and each with its own unique sorrows, joys and issues. And yet they co-exist and are quite the same at many human levels. Don’t get grossed out by some parts - they’re quite essential to the big picture - though they may feel brutal at times.