The Coromandel Coast is named as the Indian end of a people-smuggling route that carried Tamil Sri Lankan refugees by fishing boat from the Jaffna Peninsula. In the account of Krishna and Villu’s escape, it marks a passage from a village destroyed by conflict toward a precarious new life in Bombay.

A Route of Escape

Conflict between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan Army had devastated the village Krishna and Villu came from, leaving almost all members of their families dead. The two young men escaped with surviving relatives, including Villu’s sister, Krishna’s grandparents, and two young nieces. A fishing boat took them to India along the smuggling route between the Jaffna Peninsula and the Coromandel Coast.

Place in the Refugees’ Journey

The coast appears not as a described landscape but as a waypoint in a dangerous journey. After reaching India, Krishna, Villu, and their surviving relatives made their way to Bombay, where they initially lived beneath a sheet of plastic on a footpath. The route’s mention connects the destruction of their home to their displacement and eventual arrival in the city.