Kodinhi - A village of 350 twins
It’s famous the world over, for a most remarkable feat. It’s not anything the residents have done consciously, in fact they claim to be just as baffled as anyone else. So, what brings the world to this sleepy, lush green village 25 kilometers off Malappuram?
Twins. There’s an unusually high number of twins born here. Yes, Kodinhi, a predominantly Muslim-dominated village, has 2,000 families and a population of 15,000. But watch this stunning statistic — out of every 1,000 children born, 45 are twins!
What this means, is that you’re certain to see twins in almost every family in the village. All you have to do is walk around and they are everywhere: young, old and middle-aged, identical and non-identical twins: at schools, the marketplace, shops and offices.
According to 58-year-old Dr.Krishnan Sree Byju, a social activist and public health consultant at Tirurangadi Taluk Hospital, the village already has no less than 350 twins.
The oldest known pair of twins in the village was born in 1949. In case of any mischief, the villagers can’t even identify the culprit since he or she will have a twin sibling.
Nobody knows why or how this phenomenon originated.
The secret it holds still continues to be an unsolved puzzle for the medical experts around the world. Intrigued by the extraordinary number of twins, leading researchers and medical experts from various parts of the world continue to flock to Kodinhi determined to unravel the mystery.
Very recently a team of geneticists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Hyderabad visited Kodinhi for a detailed study.
The team went door-to-door and collected data about the twins. Earlier, The National Geographic Channel in association with various local organisations had also conducted a similar study.
Their research included genetic, biological, molecular, hereditary and climatic factors. It’s generally perceived that genetic or even environmental factors could influence the ‘twinning’ phenomenon.
It’s also been observed that girls in the villages marry at a much younger age. Could this be a trigger? One never knows. Even girls who come as brides to this village have been giving birth to twins!
Though researchers point at different possibilities, as things stand today, none of their studies have come to a logical conclusion. “It’s time we stepped beyond curiosity and did an in-depth study covering various angles,” Byju says.
Even as the researchers go back from Kodinhi with more questions than answers, 58-year-old T.K. Abdul Razak, a Gulf-returnee, says he knows what the secret is. He believes that children are God’s gift. “I don’t subscribe to such studies”, he says.
