The Jaffna Peninsula is presented as the homeland from which Krishna and Villu flee after war destroys their village. Its significance in their story lies in the human cost of conflict: the peninsula is the point of departure from a community and family life almost entirely lost, and the beginning of a precarious journey toward survival in Bombay.

Homeland and Conflict

Krishna and Villu are Tamil Sri Lankans from the same village on the Jaffna Peninsula. The conflict between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan Army obliterates their village, leaving almost all members of both families dead. The peninsula is thus recalled not through a description of its landscape but through the destruction that makes escape necessary.

Flight and Narrative Significance

The two young men escape with Villu’s sister, a cousin, Krishna’s grandparents, and Krishna’s two nieces, both under five. A fishing boat carries the survivors to India along the people-smuggling route between Jaffna and the Coromandel Coast. They make their way onward to Bombay, where they initially live as pavement dwellers beneath a sheet of plastic. The journey connects the peninsula’s wartime devastation to their later displacement and precarious life in the city.