“The subject is pronounced dead at 11:34 am, dated May 2nd”. When Amir was undergoing his medical training, the thought that he would have to pronounce his own daughter’s death never crossed his mind.
Maham’s body was as white as a daisy, and as dainty. She looked oddly at peace, as if something that had puzzled her for a long time suddenly made sense. Who would have thought that suicide of all things would bring her peace.
Maham’s was born to a house of over-achieving, overbearing parents. She was the middle child. Her older brother was a doctor-in-training, of course, and her younger sister was a ruthless human being. Azra, or Azroo as Maham liked to call her, needed to be everywhere, needed to do everything. Maham couldn’t recall having a complete conversation with her; Azroo was always preoccupied.
Maham was eight years old when she started locking her bedroom door. It was two months before anyone even noticed. Amir tried to ask her reasons for locking herself in but clearly, the locked door was not where the problem stemmed from. It stemmed from the fact that she had locked herself inside the confines of her mind.
Her room was her entire galaxy. The glow-in-the-dark stars at the ceiling made weird shapes sometimes. Her stereo was so loud that at sixteen, she could completely drown all the voices out. The voice of her mother who kept telling her that she could ‘do better’. Better at school, better at socializing, better at life. The voice of Azroo who always found the perfect way to save the world every few months, then got on to sharing her wisdom with her entire social circle. The voice of Ahmer bhai, occasionally, speaking of all his medals that inspired a general aura of approval that deafened her ears.
So she silenced them all out, and read books of far-off galaxies. She was not sad, nor was she bitter. She was just grossly misunderstood. So she locked them all out, all voices but one, the one that whispered through the windows. That was the voice that soothed her when she wanted to scratch the insides of her hands again. The Voice that told her that she was as good as Azroo or Ahmer bhai, and it felt good to hear that. So she kept windows open, and through the windows the Voice whispered to her about love, acceptance and encouragement.
Maham told mum about the Voice by accident. They were having breakfast, and for the first time the Voice was loud enough to be heard all the way in the living room.
“Dreams, Screams, Lullabies...”
The Voice always greeted her with these words. Although nonsensical, they seemed to calm her down.
“Off with you; I’m eating,” she responded irritably, she was always cranky at breakfast. Her mom looked at her puzzled. And that was when Maham realized what she had done. And so, despite the warnings, Maham told Mum about the Voice that whispered through the windows.
Her first psychiatric session did not go well. Amir took her to this doctor who was supposedly the ‘best psychiatrist in town’, but his eyes wandered a lot and the Voice kept begging Maham not to talk about it. The psychiatrist ended up handing Amir a prescription with seven squiggly words on it. He told Amir his daughter had Schizophrenia.
In the days that followed her parents looked at her more closely at the breakfast table. She felt more conscious. The Voice was her constant companion. When they left for their jobs and asked her to take her medicine at noon, the Voice begged her against it. It insisted her parents wanted to kill Maham, so they only had to deal with Azroo and Ahmer bhai. Maham began to see sense in that claim.
After thirty seven psychiatric sessions, five cases of force feeding her the medicines, Amir had accepted that his daughter had Paranoid Schizophrenia. She was to be hospitalized immediately. He had never though his quiet, middle child would be that big a bother for him. He consulted his wife and of course, how could they let Maham drag their family name in the mud? Who would marry Azroo then? The daughter of Dr. Amir Hassan she may be but then she would also be the sister of a ‘Pagal Larki’, a ‘Psychiatry ki Patient’.
The next time Ahmer Bhai came over, Azroo convinced him that he should try to talk to their alienated sister. When did she become so distant that we did not realized that she needed psychiatric help? They both wondered. After all, Maham had everything. Her parents rarely fought, or talked even. And they always had enough money; they all got their education from the best institutions of the city. She was weird, she never had any real friends, just a bunch of people she occasionally talked to. And she sure spent an awful amount of time locked in that room of hers. But when did she become a retard? A million questions in their heads, a million thoughts troubling their minds.
After talking to Maham, which mainly consisted of inconsistent nods and mumbling and looking at the window on Maham’s part, Azroo suggested that they close the windows for a while, The first time Ahmer tried to, Maham bit his hand so hard it bled. It was probably the first time that everyone in her household really saw that meek, quiet, middle child.They saw the hostility in her eyes, the animosity in her voice as as she screeched, “No.” Amir felt utterly helpless. When they did not bother opening the door of their eight year old daughter persistently, they had no idea that one day they would be opening the door to person they did not even know. He injected her with a tranquilizer and asked Ahmer to close the windows. They would talk to the psychiatrist first thing in the morning.
The whole family spent the entire night turning in their beds. Ahmer kept thinking of the patients he had seen in the psychiatric ward of his hospital, how subhuman they acted, how little he thought of them. Azroo thought of ways she could help her sister in. Maybe call for an event raising awareness about Schizophrenia? Charity that donates money to its research? Document conversations between Maham and the Voice?
Maham’s parents had troubles of their own. What was the best way to keep it hidden from the entire extended family? Amir knew that this news would spread like wild fire in the doctor’s community. What would he say when they will ask him how negligent could he be of his own child? How would he show his untainted, somewhat still handsome, face in his social circle now?
They all conversed with their own mind, while upstairs Maham conversed with the Voice. She went through her journal, ancient stories. She read every line. The Voice had been insisting on it for some time now. Maham had never heard such harshness and malice in its tone before. Whenever the Voice became mean, it later apologized. Then it began insisting on it again.
So Maham tore each page slowly, as if a mere spectator of the dark play that was her life. She glued each page on the wall, all of them, everything she or the Voice had ever documented. The door was locked and the window was wide open.
Amir heard a loud thud at 5:40 am. It was an awkward thud, loud and vulgar somehow. He got up to investigate, and got pulled to Maham’s room. The door, for once, was open. He felt an uncharacteristic sense of panic.
He entered Maham’s room. The walls were plastered with pages containing three lines each. The window was open. He walked slowly, a man in denial. He read one,
Mum tells me I am an ugly failure at life
It tells me it’s okay, you’re not.”
He paused and looked at the word. “It.”
Azroo came home today, very late
I wanted to tell her about a book I read
It tells me Azroo has better things to do.”
Amir was standing by the window now. It was open, of course it was. There was a page taped to the pane. He closed his eyes for a moment. Maham, his dear daughter. Maham, whose first word was “Daddy”. Maham, who gave him a hand written card for his birthday. Maham. Maham. Maham.
I’ve been thinking about my Open Windows
I wonder if there is anything on the other side
It tells me there is one way to find out.”
As Amir looked at the mangled mesh 60 feet down, all that remained of her daughter’s body, he knew the window of his mind, as of this room, would now forever be shut closed.
