Like peas in a pod

Sun, May 4 12:35 AM

We've seen films about the similarity of twins, laughed at the notion of twin telepathy and wondered how two individuals can think exactly the same thoughts. But twins have a different tale to tell.

They've been called freaks of nature, have had to deal with constant cases of mistaken identities, and even had identity crises among themselves because of their need to be different from each other. Twins are more complicated than they seem to be.

Here are five things we've always wanted to know about twins: Different strokes:- When 21-year-old commerce student Kaavya Kumar woke up one morning, the first thought that crossed her mind was to eat that box of cereal that had been lying untouched for over a month. As she walked into the kitchen to satiate her craving, she saw an empty box of Rice Krispies in the garbage bin while her mirror image twin gazed at her guiltily.

"It always happens that way. Even when I'm sleeping, Ananya figures out what's on my mind and does it before I can wake up," laughs Kaavya.

It's hard to tell them apart. The only difference between Kaavya and her twin Ananya, who is currently a management trainee, is that they have moles on different hands.

Kaavya's is on the left while Ananya's is on the right. Which is why they are identical twins with a twist.

They are mirror images of each other. According to pediatrician Dr Rudra Mehra, there are three basic kinds of twins: Identical twins: They look alike and are born from a single fertilised egg.

They are always of the same sex. Mirror image twins: Are a subset of identical twins, but each one appears as a reflection of the other.

Their identifying marks are always on opposite sides. Fraternal twins: Conceived from two different eggs, fraternal twins don't look alike.

In fact most of them are of mixed sex. "The most common sets of twins worldwide are those who are fraternal.

They constitute over 66 per cent of twin births," says Dr Mehra. "But unlike identical twins, they do not share 100 per cent of the same DNA and can look very dissimilar as well.

" In India too, it's more common to see fraternal twins than identical twins. "Since our birth rate is high, we see a lot more twins being born here (almost one set in 80 pregnancies) and since the odds of having fraternal twins are higher, there are a lot more fraternal twins here," Dr Mehra adds.

Bonded for life:- Most people assume that identical twins are bound to be very close. While the assumption is not completely wrong, the truth is that not all twins are as thick as thieves.

Take for example 27-year-old identical twins Varun and Tarun Tandon. Varun works as a media marketing manager and Tarun in real estate.

Their tastes differ in clothes, careers and food. Even their friends are completely different.

"We don't even look alike anymore since our hairstyles are different and our body structures are different," says Varun. "I think the last time we had friends in common was way back in school.

Since then, our personalities have developed differently and we've always had different tastes. Though we both like to party, on any given Saturday night, he hangs out with his friends and I with mine.

" But this isn't the story for all twins. In fact, if there's one thing that most of them declare, it's the fact that their bond is extremely strong.

"There's always that one person who knows you inside out - all your dark secrets and your hidden fears. For me, it's my twin brother Abhiman (earlier known as Ajay)," says model Vijay Balhara.

"Since we've been very close and have done everything together since childhood, we've never needed the company of anyone else." A team:- That's what most twins call themselves.

A team that believes in encouraging each other to compete with the world outside, rather than fighting among themselves. "Honestly, there's hardly any point in competing with each other.

Instead Kush and I encourage each other a lot," says Shatrughan Sinha's older twin Luv Sinha. "We work together to take on the outside world.

" But it's not just identical twins who share a close-knit bond; most fraternal twins too are quite interdependent. Corporate manager Pooja Kapoor feels that her bond with her fraternal twin Megha, who is a management trainee, is extremely strong.

"Actually, we don't know any different. We've always had to share our clothes, classes and even our experiences," she says.

"Even though we are complete opposites, there's an extra-special thing that we have which is very hard to explain." Telepathic zone:- One of the first questions that twins are always asked is this: "Are you telepathic?" More often than not, the answer is yes.

"Though we live in different cities, if on any random day I ask my twin Indu what she is wearing, chances are that she and I are dressed in identical colours," says Bindu Sharma. "I know it's very hard to believe, but that's how alike we think sometimes.

" The Balhara brothers have a similar tale to tell. "Often we've walked out of our respective rooms and found that we looked completely alike - dressed from head to toe in identical clothes," says Vijay.

"One of us then has to change so that we don't look like a set of gimmicky twins gone wrong." While these are only mild examples of some telepathic experiences, most twins feel that under dire circumstances they know how to reach the other.

Some have visions and even react instantly to each other's pain. "My sister Nikita was admitted to a hospital because of a bad case of food poisoning," says architecture student Poojita Rai.

"Every time the doctor gave her an injection, I had to rush to the loo to throw up just because I couldn't stand the pain." Her identical twin sister Nikita has had similar experiences as well.

"When Poojita fractured her right leg on a trip with some of her friends, I doubled up in pain and fell down in the middle of my class," she says. "Nobody could figure out what was wrong with me but I knew that something had happened to Poojita.

And all I wanted to do was call her." According to doctors, twins are often telepathic since they created that bond when they were younger.

"They are generally on the same frequency at the same time and have learnt to communicate without words," says Dr Rudra Mehra. "Though there is no complete scientific explanation for why they feel each other's pain, there is enough documented information from time immemorial to show that twins have a strong telepathic connection.

" Engineer Rajeev Verma recalls how he had visions of his sister being mugged in a dark alley in San Francisco while he was at work back home in India. "I had seen her phone being stolen, so didn't bother trying to call her.

Instead I called her husband immediately and described what I had seen," says Rajeev. "Luckily he knew the area I was talking about and he got there within 10 minutes.

Fortunately, she had only been mugged and nothing else." Experts have often carried out experiments to check out the telepathic connection between twins.

"Often we try to see how our telepathic connection works, and so from across a room we send messages to each other," says Kaavya Kumar. "Nine times out of 10 my sister gets it right!" It's a well-known fact that twins who are very close often develop a 'twin language' to understand each other better and keep secrets from the rest of the world.

While most twins don't remember if they did talk in secret code, parents do recall certain words that were unique to their twins. "When my twins Aarti and Aman were toddlers, I'd often see them pass toys to each other and say something that only the other understood," says bank manager Monica Khanna, "Till they were six years old, they'd talk to each other in the same language.

After that I think they outgrew it." However, some doctors feel that twin language is nothing but the duo mimicking each other and trying to say things that they have picked up from listening to their parents.

"It's a very rare case when twins actually develop their own language and it only happens if they are under a lot of stress or have lived in isolation," says Dr Mehra. Mixed identities:- As children, it's the one thing that twins revel in.

As adults, they absolutely hate it. Most twins are often mistaken for each other, especially if they are identical.

Back in college, entrepreneur twins Raghav and Sanjay Mittal used it to their advantage. "I'd often want to bunk college and just stay at home, but would be forced to go because of my attendance problem.

But Sanjay was an early riser, so often I'd beg him to just drop by my college to mark attendance and head on to whatever he was doing," chuckles 32-year-old Raghav. "Of course I would hear no end of it from him, but my friends got a kick out of it.

" From teachers mistaking one for the other, to parents reprimanding the wrong twin for a misdemeanor, to playing pranks on their friends, there are times that twins love to take the mickey out of other people. Poojita Rai recalls how she would always be forced into the wrong class by her teachers.

"Every time they found one of us lurking in the corridors, we would be shoved into whatever section they thought we belonged to," she says. "That's when we figured that we could play pranks in school.

We'd pretend to be each other and pop in from various parts of the school to confuse the teachers. It was quite funny until they caught on.

" But for Varun Tandon, mistaken identities gets quite tedious. "It's almost like everywhere we go, people use both our names when they refer to us," he says.

"It's like, 'oh look, Varun-Tarun are here.' It's rather annoying especially since it's quite easy now to differentiate between the two of us.

" Twindividuality:- Bringing up twins can be quite hard, especially if they have a very competitive streak in them. While twins are happy enough to share their darkest secrets with each other, it's the search for their own individuality that takes a lot of time.

Most of them believe that once their individual personalities start taking over their twinness, their parents begin to notice how different they are. "My twins Jai and Yash began to show how different they were right from the time they turned three.

They wanted to wear different colours and clothes, eat their favourite fruit and even choose their own toys," says fashion designer Payal Jain. "The catch here was to recognise their need to be different from each other and encourage that.

" Twins who have been encouraged to take up different interests seem to be more at peace with each other than twins who have been brought up traditionally. "I learned to play the guitar, while Poojita played the piano," says Nikita.

"Initially we were both annoyed at the separation, but that meant that we could play in the school band together, which was great." Experts often recommend that parents of twins shouldn't see them just as a 'team' or a 'unit' but as individual children who have strong personalities.

For Bindu and Indu Sharma, it was essential to do the same thing. "Unlike our younger sister, we both wanted to learn classical dance and both wanted to pursue a career in retail," says Bindu.

"But that hasn't hampered our growth as two individuals. If nothing else it's just made us all the better.

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