Twin Trouble

To those poor innocents who thought boys are a handful ...

Words: 1511

"The people who say sons are a handful have never had daughters!"

Ratan mopped his brow as he straightened up, having located the missing left sock under the sofa. Very deep under the sofa. With two daughters aged four and two-and-a-half respectively, Ratan did a lot of bending and straightening up. The good news was, he saved money on gym memberships.

"I hope the other two are boys," Ratan muttered. Yes. His wife was expecting again - twins this time. The gender of the unborn is never revealed in India, and Ratan alternated between shrugging, shivering and chuckling to himself at the thought of two more in the gang of sisters.

Two more there were.

The elder two cuddled the younger two in photos that oozed sweetness, and caused Ratan many a heartburn. But if he thought he had it tough then ...

Dilemmas like which twin had eaten two chocolates while the other went without, or who had broken whose toy or spilled paint on whose new frock paled into insignificance when the twins started school.

The teachers' welcoming smiles and cooing 'Oh how sweet's gave way to 'good morning' muttered through clenched teeth within three days of the twins' admission to Kindergarten.

The first phone call was about one twin biting the teacher, and each saying the other was responsible when questioned. No amount of grilling could get the truth out of them.

The Principal took the first big decision about the troublesome duo within a week of their advent into his premises. He allotted them to separate classrooms, under the care of two different teachers, a whole corridor apart from each other.

The day after he made his move, he was besieged by parents of other students demanding an audience with him.

"What's the matter?" he asked the group clustered at his office door.

"What have you been doing to those two pretty little girls?" they demanded.

"What pretty little girls?"

"The two at the gate, the twins."

The Principal groaned inwardly and sent his secretary to see what the twins were doing.

"They're standing just inside the gate, sir," she reported. "Sobbing heartrendingly every time a parent walks or drives by to drop a kid off. When the parents ask what the matter is, they blubber 'The Principal – he –' and burst into tears."

"Bring them here," he whispered, and signaled to the parents to wait.

When they were brought before him, he asked the twins to tell the parents what had happened, in their own words. If he thought they'd say something to get him off the hook, he was mistaken.

"You have gone against the will of God," the first twin piped up.

"What?" the poor man stuttered.

"Yes," the second twin said. "Our mother said God sent us together. And you separated us. We can't be apart the whole day."

"They can't be apart, the poor dears," muttered the mothers and fathers. "Twins are meant to be together."

There was no help for it, the twins were back in the same classroom.

They had to dress in the school uniform, but the teachers tried insisting on colour-coded hair ribbons. Didn't work, the twins changed them in the car on the way to school as per their convenience.

The twins grew, and went from class to class.

Now there were exams and tests to think about. The teachers managed well enough to grade each twin on written tests - it was the oral ones that created a problem.

Each twin simply studied half the material required and gave each exam twice, once as herself and once impersonating the other one. Their older sister was called from her class to identify them. They bribed her with comic books and part of her exam was learning which twin had studied which part of the syllabus, to identify them appropriately when called upon.

"It's no use," the Principal sighed, finally, "let's just grade whichever twin it is. We don't have enough evidence to really punish them."

"And they're earning the school a good reputation on the sports field," the Vice-Principal replied.

They were indeed. Table-tennis (ping pong) and badminton were their forte, especially the doubles matches. They worked brilliantly together and were selected to play in every tournament.

"Rules Changed as Twins Rule" read the sports page headline one bright morning. Ratan, having attended the party the previous night to celebrate his daughters bringing home the trophy, wasn't sure he wanted to read on, but he forced himself to. If there was something he should know ...

His twins had been up against another pair of twins in the table-tennis finals. The referee had apparently tried every which way to ensure the rules were kept by both duos - about alternating the service and so forth. She had given up in despair, each pair had well-practiced methods to get around any restraint she attempted to enforce. She had finally stated that since both had the same advantages over her, both teams were exempt from those rules, making it an even playing field. The match had been close and Ratan found himself grinning as he finished reading the report - his daughters had won fair, square and on merit.

And then the injury happened.

It happened during the semi-final of the badminton tournament, when Twin #2, in reaching too far, lost her footing and fell. She cut her cheek quite deep, and the school nurse called Ratan before transferring her to a clinic.

Twin #1 was by her sister's side throughout, and that evening, narrated the scene to her older sisters.

"That doctor was the most boastful guy I've ever seen," she stated. "He kept telling Dad that thanks to his skill, he'd stitch it up so it would heal without any scar. Said no other doctor could equal him ... arrogant ..."

Twin #1 went along for the daily dressings by nurses, and finally for the one-week check up by the great doctor himself.

But old habits die hard. The bandage wasn't a hair-ribbon, and the twins had to buy another so they each had one, but in the backseat, in time-honoured tradition, each twin had a matching bandage on, unnoticed by an unsuspecting father. As for fooling the receptionist, the twins were dab hands at presenting profiles and it went like a breeze.

"There! You see? I told you there wouldn't be a scar! It's almost a miracle, look how it has healed in a week!"

Twin #1 allowed him to go on for two-and-a-half minutes before she called his bluff. "It is a miracle, because my sister, in the waiting room, has the scar."

The doctor got his revenge by giving each twin an injection, telling their father they needed a dose. Ratan agreed heartily.

Then - hey presto - they'd finished high school and almost graduated from college. Their oldest sister got engaged, then married, followed by the middle sister. The community matchmakers started talking about finding husbands for the twins.

Twin #1 broke it to the family that she already had a boyfriend, something only her twin had been privy to thus far. So, the community matchmakers set about looking for a husband for Twin #2.

In time, a phone call came to say an eligible bachelor from a good family would be arriving the next day to check out his prospective bride. When the time came, the twins dressed in identical formal clothes and wore identical make-up. They listened for the young man's car in the driveway and opened the door before the ringing of the doorbell could warn anyone else of his presence.

They sat him on the armchair and perched themselves on the sofa opposite him, giggling. Not knowing which girl to pay his addresses to, the young man sat awkwardly twiddling his fingers till Ratan, wondering why the visitor hadn't arrived, came to the living room to investigate.

It being 'arranged' and the young people having approved of each other, Twin #2 got engaged and married quite rapidly. Twin #1 and her boyfriend were dating, still. The boyfriend being a couple of years younger than Twin #1, and still studying, they postponed getting officially engaged till he started on his first job.

The oldest sister was in charge of decorations, the middle one in charge of the food.

The guests arrived for the engagement ceremony.

"OH!"

It was all that the two older ones could do, to stop themselves bursting into laughter. The looks on the faces of the guests!

You see, by the time Twin #1 got engaged, Twin #2 was seven months pregnant, and very visible indeed.

Once the fiancée-to-be emerged from 'backstage', the guests calmed down and enjoyed the food.

For a while, there was relative calm on the Twin-Stories front.

Till Twin #1 went into labour with her first child three weeks after Twin #2 had delivered her second. Ratan needed to calm the nurses down, it being the same hospital.

And, as of now, we've come a full circle. Twin #1 now has twin granddaughters, and they've taken twinning a step ahead of their grandma!