What is the setting of Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie?

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a story within a story. The outer shell is set in make-believe Alfibay, derived from the Hindustani word for "alphabet." All geographical locations are referred to by a single letter, even though everyone agrees this is inconvenient and confusing. The people in adolescent protagonist Haroun Khalifa's home town are so sad and depressed that they have forgotten the name of their town. Haroun and his professional storytelling father, Rashid, head for the Valley of K and beautiful Dull Lake, a takeoff on Dal Lake in Kashmir. The setting is clearly modern time, for there are trains, planes, and even supercomputers, in addition to the speeding, over-crowded bus that seem always to appear in stories about the Indian subcontinent.