Big Ammachi

Big Ammachi is one of the novel's primary characters. At the start of Part One, Big Ammachi is 12 years old. Because her father recently died, her uncle arranges her marriage to "a man of good means" (4). Big Ammachi does not want to leave her home or her family. However, she knows that she has no say over her future or her fate.

After Big Ammachi marries her husband, she struggles to orient to her new life at the Parambil estate. She constantly feels alone and particularly worries about and longs for her mother. The only way that she survives her new and unfamiliar reality, is by forming connections with her husband's son JoJo and his sister Thankamma. Although she is still young, Big Ammachi gradually learns how to be both a friend and a new mother to JoJo. Meanwhile, she sees in Thankamma what she misses about...