Unit 12:

Seeing double
The twins whom I interviewed described their relationship with their sister or
brother as the most intimate relationship in their lives. While intuitive knowing
or psychic awareness is something we all possess, this experience is heightened
when you are a twin. Even when twins are out of touch and out of verbal contact for
a while, one twin can sense it's time to touch in because something important is
happening in the other's life. The level of intimacy and connection commonly
experienced between twins provides a model of closeness hard to replicate in other
relationships.
Anne and Liz Keliher, 37, are identical twins, bon just three minutes apart. "I
probably feel less alone in the world because I am a twin," reflects Anne. "I have
more of a sense of home, have a sense there will always be someone who understands
me how I feel, how I think and who even shares my thoughts and feelings. As long as
Liz is here, celebrating special occasions, talking to someone who will really
listen and care about me... I am guaranteed to have that in my life."
"On the other hand, on your birthday it's about you and someone else," notes Liz,
"so, you've never had the experience of it being all about you."
Anne and Liz have worked hard to define who they are both as individuals and in
relationship to their twin. "Even though we come from the same genetic code, as
soon as we were born, we started to live separate experiences," comments Anne.
"There was nature and nurture. We felt the impact of how we were treated by family,
in classrooms.... The different experiences changed me both emotionally and
physically. And while we look a lot alike, even physically there are many
differences. My face is longer and narrower: I weigh less. We have different smiles
and different colour eyes. Some people think we look like regular sisters although
a lot of people think we look like twins.'
Liz acknowledges, "Defining my identity and working on individuality have taken a
lot of my energy. It has been a big focus for me. Being a twin was a nice base to
have. I don't think I have wrestled with my twinship being a source of identity
confusion as much as Anne. The only times I've wrestled with it are when people
have negative perceptions."
"Being a twin has been the impetus to explore my identity," says Anne. "I'm a very
reflective person. There's so much more to explore, to reflect on because I'm a
twin. The world puts the question to me-how are you different from your sister if
you look so much alike? I take that cue from the world and reflect on it."
Anne and Liz spoke also of how being a twin can simultaneously make you feel more
connected and more alone. "You expect an affinity with people that isn't
achievable, at least not easily," comments Liz. "So, I've experienced a sense of
aloneness more deeply and a sense of connection more deeply"
"There is a sense of separateness from other people who don't understand or fear
being a twin because it is different" acknowledges Anne. "That's where the sense of
greater aloneness comes from."
Liz speaks of her experience."I think you're always looking for a bond with people
that approaches your understanding with your twin with romantic relationships. I
seek an intensity that most people feel is unattainable. My boyfriend thinks I have
unrealistic expectations of how much he can understand me, because I have an
understanding with Anne I don't have to work for completely."
She continues, "There are certain unique things a romantic partnership could
encompass that ours can't. In terms of shared experience, it is hard to compete
with that. With Anne, the foundation is a given. There is an understanding of where
the other person is coming from because you were there for all of it the whole
childhood thing. That makes communication easier!"
Anne and Liz have a younger sister Meg, who may have suffered in the shadows of the
twins. "The happiness when shared with my twin is deeper, but the suffering is
easier to feel as well. It's easier to feel my twin's suffering than my other
sister's," describes Anne. "The biggest polarisation in our family was bad cop/good
cop," adds Liz. "We were the good ones. Our sister Meg was the bad one. We got good
grades. Meg didn't. Our parents looked at us as an entity. Liz was the extroverted
side. Anne was the introverted side. You need both sides for the entity to be
whole." As a single-born sibling, things were dramatically different for Meg. E
Reading
9 Read the newspaper article below.
Passage B: Twin Town
A team of experts who visited the remote tropical Indian village of Kodinhi, in the
Malappuram district of the southern state of Kerala, have been left baffled by the
extraordinary phenomenon of six times as many twins being born there than accords
with the global average. The mysterious village, popularly known as Twin Town, has
produced 220 sets of twins in a population of just 2000 people. In practice, that
means approximately 10% of the town's population are a twin. For every 1000 births
in Kodinhi, 45 are twins, whereas in the rest of India it is 4 in 1000. In 2008,
out of 300 healthy deliveries, 15 were pairs of twins. In the last five years alone
up to 60 pairs of twins have been born with the rate of twins increasing year-on-
year. The majority of twins are identical of the same sex. Whether the women marry
within the village or with men from other villages is immaterial.
The local doctor, 40-year-old Dr Krishnan Sribiju, has been studying the medical
marvel of Kodinhi for the past five years. He believes the real number of twins to
be far higher than the 220 sets officially registered. 'In my medical opinion there
are around 300 to 350 twins within the village boundaries of Kodinhi, he said. What
is fascinating is the increasing numbers of twins with each passing year, so much
so that in the past ten years the number of twins in Kodinhi has doubled."
According to villagers, the twin phenomenon only started to occur three generations
ago, in 1949. There are now twins of every age in the community. The local school
has 30-40 sets of twins at any one time. With the majority of twins in Kodinhi
being of the identical kind and the fact that a large percentage are under the age
of twenty, the opportunities to practise mischief at school and beyond is enormous.
Dr Sribiju is excited by the possible scientific implications of the unique miracle
of the village.
Without access to detailed biochemical analysis equipment I cannot say for certain
what the reason for the twinning is, but I feel that it is something to do with
what the villagers eat and drink. It is known that Igbo-Ora in Nigeria has the
highest rate of twin births in the world, and one theory attributes this fact to
the eating of tropical yams. If diet is the explanation, then he believes that
whatever is causing this exceptional level of twinning may be used to provide help
for infertile couples.
Categorising the twin phenomenon as a naturally occurring anomaly, Dr Sribiju has
ruled out genetic factors as the cause due to the localised nature of the village.
He also dismisses any suggestion that the unusual level of twins could be caused by
an unknown pollutant, pointing to the high number of healthy twins born without any
deformities. "The number of twins per thousand here is around 45 per 1000 births.
This is an extraordinary concentration when you consider that Indian, and by that I
mean Asian, people on the sub-continent have the lowest acknowledged incidences of
twinning in the world at around four per thousand."
There is no IVF treatment available, because of the prohibitive cost, so the reason
for the rise of rates of twins being born in the west does not affect India. Also,
twins are born usually to older, more mature women. In Kodinhi that is not the case
because women marry much younger, between 18 and 20 years old, and they start their
families soon afterwards. Another factor that bucks the trend is that twins occur
in women who are generally over 5 ft 3 inches (160.02 cm) in height. The average
height of women in Kodinhi is around 5 ft (152.40 cm).
Dr Sribiju is currently trying to assemble the research support he needs to delve
deeper into the reasons for the existence of the twin town of Kodinh. He believes
it is essential that there should be an in-depth study of the genetic, biological
and climatic factors in order to determine the cause of this puzzling case of
multiple births.