What do the villages that Sriram visits over the course of the story have in common in the book, Waiting For Mahatma: A Novel?

The villages that Sriram visits throughout the novel are represented as a collective to reflect the fact that Sriram himself has trouble distinguishing one from another. They are portrayed as places of absolute poverty and lack of material possession, though they are never portrayed as monolithically depressing or joyless.