Hardly anyone would have heard the name of village called Kodinhi but this small village is famous world over for a most remarkable feat. It’s not anything the residents have done intentionally; in fact they claim to be just as bemused as anyone else. So, what brings the world’s attention to this sleepy, lush green village which is 25 kilometers off Malappuram?
TWINS: There are an unusually high number of twins born here. Kodhini, a town in Kerala, India, with a population of only 2000 villagers has around 350 twins. In the year 2008 alone, 15 pairs were born. This is a strange phenomenon in this town and a story goes that this trend started some 60-70 years ago. Globally, twins comprise just 6 of every 1,000 live births, while in Kodinhi they comprise 42 of 1,000 live births. This is a 700% increase. India has one of the lowest twinning rates in the world, but Kodinhi is close to the top of the global twinning league.
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.
Many funny stories are doing rounds in the schools about the teachers finding it difficult to identify the twins. The local people too face similar piquant situation. The identity crisis is not confined to schools alone. There are also jokes that the newly-wed couples of Kodinhi often mistake their partners for the other twins of the pairs in the beginning of their conjugal life!
The mammoth birth rate of twins in the village still remains as a mystery coupled with curiosity for everyone.
Nobody knows why or how this phenomenon originated!!!
Baffled doctors are trying to unravel the mystery of Kodinhi who is boasting more than 220 sets of twins born to just 2,000 families. Experts who have visited the remote tropical village of Kodinhi, in Kerala, have been left scratching their heads over the phenomenon that has seen almost six times as many twins born than the global average. Local doctor and twin enthusiast Dr Krishnan Sribiju has been studying the medical marvel of Kodinhi for the past two years. Although 220 sets of twins have been officially registered in the village Dr Sribiju believes the real number to be far higher.
The genetic, biological,molecular, heriditery and climatic factors of the puzzling phenomina are the subject matter of the research on the multiple births at Kodinhi . Its interesting to note that the women married off from Kodinhi and also married to the youth in Kodinhi too have been giving birth to twins.
Investigate the twin phenomenon, drilling into the legacy of the community to search for the origin of twinning patterns and genetic predispositions that might offer a scientific breakthrough. While the strange and wonderful phenomina of extra-ordinary concentration of twin births in this village continues, an in-depth study on the various factors to find out its causes has become highly essential.
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.
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