CHAPTER 79

Summary

• In 1977, in Parambil, Mariamma is frustrated by having to wait to visit her imprisoned husband, Lenin.
• Mariamma is also hounded by rumours among the Triple Yem patients she treats, causing her to lose her patience and leaving the patient care to Joppan.
• Meanwhile, Mariamma and Uplift Master travel to Trivandrum to hire a lawyer to obtain a lighter sentence for Lenin.
• Mariamma is despondent at the thought of Lenin serving a few years in prison and the physical distance between them as she travels to Vellore for neurosurgical training.
• Mariamma is suffering and becomes emotionally exhausted, which Anna Chedethi notices and provides her comfort with familiar food and care.
• In her inability to sleep, Mariamma reads her deceased father's journal entries about her, which brings her comfort, but also intrigue and confusion as she reads his notes about her mother being pregnant before returning home after a year’s absence.
• Mariamma realizes that her father implied that she is not his biological child, which brings her great distress and disbelief, as she had always believed she shared physical traits with him.
• The chapter ends with Mariamma reflecting on her identity, her familiar piebald streak in her hair, and recalling a terrible, unnamed knowledge.