In the evening glow of an oil lamp on Parambil’s verandah in 1959, Big Ammachi feeds eight-year-old Mariamma as Philipose calls the family to prayers. Mariamma talks about a book where a boy named Oliver has no parents, and she touches the white streak in her hair, which Big Ammachi calls her “specialness,” a sign of good fortune rather than fate.

Prompted by Mariamma, Big Ammachi recounts the night of Mariamma’s perilous birth, when she insisted on lighting the great velakku—traditionally reserved for a firstborn son—to honor “the first Mariamma.” Women gathered from across Parambil to celebrate a girl’s birth. She also remembers rebuking a kaniyan who produced a hidden parchment claiming he had foreseen a girl, and recalls Shamuel observing, approving the lamp-lighting.

As Philipose listens, Big Ammachi reflects on his transformation: he now lives by exacting routines—writing at dawn, walking with Shamuel, bathing, and keeping prayers—which steady him after past ruin. She fears relapse, but sees that ritual and faith have helped him rebuild purpose and self-belief.

Turning to Mariamma’s future, Big Ammachi says God knows each person’s story—“I knew you before you were born”—and urges her granddaughter to imagine without limits. If she were eight today, Big Ammachi says she would become a doctor and build a hospital at Parambil to ease suffering, a dream once closed to girls. Emboldened, Mariamma declares she could even be a bishop, and Philipose gently ushers them to prayers.