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The first weekend of August that occurs after a full August week is celebrated as Twins Day in USA and an annual event is held at Twinsburgh, OH every year in recognition of the twins. Please find more details about the event at http://www.twinsdays.org/

The greek twins Castor and Pollux represent the zodiac symbol for the constellation of Gemini, a latin word for twins. There is an interesting story behind them being a part of the constellation. The twins had different fathers that made one mortal and the other one immortal. Pollux, the immortal one asked his father Zeus to divide his immortality between them to enable them to stay together forever. Zeus transformed them into the constellation.

All these events and mythologies for being born in close succession! Whatever, being born together is a gift. Being a twin, I probably can describe it as follows (as stated in somewhere) : Have your ever seen your one eye weeping ? It is impossible. they go together. So are twins.

Two fetuses resulted in the same pregnancy are twins. There are the monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (non-identical) twins.

Existence of twins are recorded since time immemorial. Lakshman and Satrughna in the epic Ramayana are twins. Their half-brother Rama was blessed with twins Lav and Kush quoted as "LavKushalu". 'Aswinis' are twins who are quoted as doctors to gods in Hindu Mythology. And, as stated earlier, Castor and Pollux are twins of Greek mythology. Twins are news ever since not to mention about one of the US presidents blessed with twins Jenna and Barbara Bush, Mary-Kate & Ashley, the fictional twins in Harrypotter series.

The concept of twins are not just limited to Humans. Cities that are geograhically in closer proximity are called Twin cities. To name a few are Giza & Cairo of Egypt, Vijayawada & Guntur of India, Hyderabad & Secunderabad of India, and Minneapolis & St.Paul of USA. The World trade center's twin towers were popular structures once existing at NewYork, USA.

Twin primes are 2 prime numbers whose difference is two. For example, consider the 2 prime numbers 3 and 5. the difference between them is 2. Hence, (3,5) are called twin primes.

The twin concept apply to a dual personality of a person too. Based on the Gemini constellation, the 'twin' is considered a zodiac symbol, thus a concept of character of persons born in that zodiac period. As defined by Linda Goodman, a Gemini individual has a dual character (hence the 'twin') which makes it hard to figure out his true self.

Probably God thought that my parents deserve twice the joy and tantrums, that he blessed them with twins :-) Now, when I look back at my life, I took it for granted all the way that my twin would be my best friend, bench mate in class, team mate in group work, music partner, homework doer :-) etc. We used to sit together huddled in the little window in our bedroom, listening to music with one ear plug a person when it rained. We turned up with scratched knees and torn clothes when we fell off from the scooty trying to teach my twin to ride. We had the most funniest ride and uncontrollable laughs when she sat the other way round on the scooty while I rode. The days when she drew my biology diagrams in +2 when I was horribly hopeless at drawings, when we tricked our parents that we were doing 'combined studies' when we actually were chitchatting, are forever memorable. Nothing else matters when we have each other. We sing with the same frequency & tone and it evolves like a single voice. :-)

We had many 'twins' friends too. A pair of identical twins were our classmates in high school. Also, one of my teachers had a twin who in turn, was blessed with twins. And, incidentally, out of a group of 6 friends who used to stick together all the time at my university, 3 of us are twins !!

Twins are given kind of 'twinny' names most of the times that vary by a single letter or atleast of the same rhythm. we were officially named as Prasanna & Prapanna. Some fancy twin names are Sujatha & Suneeta, Seeta & Geeta, Ella & Emma, Autumn & Summer.

- Madhu

Pictures:

1) The one at the top symbolises Gemini twins, and usually used to denote 'twin'

2) Twin Cheetahs

3) Twin rocks in Atlantic ocean at Biarritz

4) The girls playing with the dolls are my twin and me

photo courtesy of pics#1,2,3: Internet