Village of Twins? Yes, Mohammadpur Umri, a littlevillage near Air Force base of Bamrauli, Allahabad of India is full of Twins.
In a population of 600 there are thirty pairs of Twins. This is quite ahigh number considering that even two pairs would have made the village unique.Dr.Lalji Singh, Director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad accepts thatgenetically this village is a gold mine.A village elderShafique Miyan recollects that the earliest pair of Twins born was sometimeafter India’spartition in 1947. One of the twins died. Such tragedy has occurred in about 20pairs. Even then this village has the highest population of twins and caneasily qualify for records. A couple of years ago a Central government teamcollected blood samples to understand the phenomenon behind this occurrence.The leader of the team, G.R.Chandak, accepts that they have not yet reached anyconclusive finding. Among the possible reasons is the mixture of environment,food and living condition and also a high degree of intermarriages in thevillage. With twins being born in every other house the poor villagers who areeither farmers or milkmen have to face the burden of feeding one more mouth. Ofcourse, with so many twins all over, there is also plenty of comedy of errors. Thereare numerous instances of mothers feeding the same child twice or a fatherbeating the wrong one of the pair. One pair of twins had only one drivinglicense between them. After marriage, even the spouses would get confused. Ofcourse there are also twins comprising individuals who are vastly differentfrom each other; if not in looks, at least in likes and dislikes. And thenthere are visitors swooping every now and then just to satisfy their curiosity.