This Kerala Village Has 400 Pairs Of Twins & Here’s The Mystery Behind It

by Sanjana Shenoy
This Kerala Village Has 400 Pairs Of Twins & Here’s The Mystery Behind It

Behind the lush greenery, tall coconut trees and still backwaters of the remote village of Kodinhi lies a mystery. This sleepy village in Malappuram district might seem ordinary. But it’s anything but that, once you meet the locals. Kodinhi has the largest number of twins in India. With 400 pairs of twins, and this number growing over the years, Kodinhi’s twin mystery has baffled researchers over the years. Why are so many pairs of twins born here? Is it genetics? The water they drink? The food they eat? What is it? Well, read on to find out more about his double trouble situation.

God’s Own Village Of Twins

Kodinhi, a village with a population of 2000 families has at least 400 pairs of twins. The official estimates in 2008 recorded the village to have 280 pairs of twins. But over the years this number has just increased. Infact the twins the national average of twin births is just 9 in 1000 births. In Kodinhi, it’s a whopping 45 in 1000 births. This mystical village has even put out a blue board captioned, Welcome to the God’s own Twins Village–Kodinhi”.

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Picture Credits: The News Minute

A Pair Of Twin Girls Conducted The First Study On Twins

Being part of the system for years, the people in Kodinhi for the longest time didn’t realise how unique they were. The unusual phenomenon of having a large number of twins in one tiny village didn’t seem quite unusual to them at all. Until one day, a pair of twin girls made a discovery. P Bhaskaran, a resident of Kodinhi narrated this story to The News Minute. Many years back, Sameera and Femeena a pair of twins, studying in 8th standard in an IISC school in the village noticed 8 pairs of twins in one class alone. The girls then went on to find out that there were twins in other classes too.

Picture Credits: India.com

This was the beginning of a marvellous discovery, for not just the two bright sisters, but for the entire village. The twins went on to conduct the first mini-survey as part of their class assignment. They found out that there were 24 pairs of twins in just their school alone.  Once the twin sister’s unusual discovery came to light, the villagers also jumped in to take note of this pattern. Bhaskaran went on to tell The News Minute, that the people of Kodinhi, irrespective of their gender, caste, religion or creed are bound together by the unusually high number of twins in the last three generations.

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Picture Credits: ripleys.com

Researchers Have No Scientific Explanation Yet

To find out if there is a scientific explanation behind this bizzarely high number of twins in one small village, a group of researchers from India, London and Germany visited Kodinhi in October 2016. They collected hair and saliva samples to study the DNA. But even this expansive research couldn’t give a straight forward scientific reason behind this mysterious phenomenon. There are speculations that a particular element in the air, water and diet of the villagers in Kodinhi can be the reason for this. But nothing has been proved yet.

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Picture Credits: Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo

Villages In Brazil, Vietnam & Nigeria Also Have Similar Twin Mysteries

Interestingly, Kodinhi is not the only village in the world with an unusually high number of twin births. Cândido Godói in Brazil,  Igbo-Ora in Nigeria and  Hung Hiep in South Vietnam are other places across the world that have an unusually high rate of twin births. There are some mysteries in this world that even science has no absolutely any explanation for. And that’s what makes it all the more fascinating to visit these places on earth and experience the wonder for ourselves. Well, the next time you’re in Kerala, be sure to visit God’s Own Village of Twins.