The Tale of Twins at Kodinhi, Kerala

Kodinhi is a village in Malappuram district in Kerala, India. The village is situated around 35 kilometres south of Calicut and 30 kilometres west of Malappuram. This ordinary village Kodinhi has an extraordinary factor, it has a large number of twin births that it is witness. This village is also called as Village of twins. As of November 2008, the population of the village was estimated at roughly 2,000 families. Currently there are about 350 pairs of twins, which range from newborn to age of 65 years. On the world level, 4 twins are born on every 1000 children. In Asia, this is even less than 4. But in Kodinhi, 45 twins children are born on every 1000 children. Although this average is at second place in the whole world, but comes first in Asia. The first place in the world is the Igbo-Ora of Nigeria, where the averages is 145. The unusually large number of twin births in the Igbo-Ora region have earned the nickname, Twin Capital of the World. Kodinhi village is a predominantly Muslim populated area. Hindus are present in a relatively small number. So the culture of the area is based on Muslim traditions. There are many libraries attached to mosques giving a rich source of Islamic studies. Most of the books are written in Arabi-Malayalam which is a version of the Malayalam language written in Arabic script. In this village, you will see twins everywhere, whether it is in school, home or any other place. In this village, there were 15 twins born on 300 children in 2008, which is the maximum twin children born in a year so far. Now in this village, after twins, triplets have also started to born together. Three such cases have happened in the past some years.

In 2008, around 30 pairs of twins from Kodinhi, along with their parents, got together to form The Twins and Kins Association, the first such association of twins in India. Because of this reason, Kodinhi village has become famous on the world level. Most of the world's largest media houses have covered this story. Many scientists have come to research here. People have to face problems due to so much twins in one village. Especially in school where teachers find it difficult to distinguish between children. The second biggest problem comes to newly married couples, who for some days do not understand, who are their life partners. One more special thing is that if one of these twins is ill, then the other is also ill, therefore, the doctor asks the two children to give medicines. What is the reason behind this so many twins in this place is still unknown. Earlier the doctors had argued that all this is due to diet, but the people of this region have similar diet as compared to other areas of Kerala. So this reason was rejected. Apart from this, the doctor has not yet found any other reason. The Kodinhi is not the only place where there is a lot of twins. There are many other places in the world too.