Odds

There are about 7 million people in Bangalore and 2001 census said 47.5% of the population is women. Assuming the same sex ratio exists in 2007 as well, that means 3.3 million of the population is women. Now what is the portion of this size that has kids under 5?

If you divide the 3.3 mn roughly into three pieces - single, young mothers & older women, we are talking about a million young mothers (sounds huge but let us go with that assumption).

Now stats say that chances of fraternal twins is 12 out of 1000 births. Since fraternal twins are dizygotic, the kids can be of any of the three combinations with equal chance (boy-boy, boy-girl & girl-girl). Not related to this discussion but FYI - identical twins are rarer than fraternal twins - 4 out of 1000.

So the chances of two girl fraternal twins is 4 out of 1000. And Bangalore should have about 4000 female fraternal twin siblings.

Now what are the chances that two such pairs sit on adjacent tables in a SLV restaurant on a Saturday evening?

Very Low odds I suppose cos this had never happened in the last 3.5 years. Also there were about 8 other empty tables in the restaurant at that time to consider if you really want to pin those chances very low.

While enjoying rava idlis & chaat at SLV, JP Nagar (if you are a food freak like me you should visit that place :-)) We were rather refreshed to meet a family similar to ours. Husband, Wife & Twin girls. The girls are in their 4th year too and about a couple of months elder to neha & nidhi. We stared at their kids and vice versa followed by little nods with partners to confirm and then we started talking - "are they twins, how old, names, how tough is it to manage..."

That pair is named ananya & amulya and looked very similar initially. A second look and closer observation of their features indicated that they are very different in fact (as different looks wise as neha & nidhi). Even in that pair, the second one seemed more dominant physically. Amulya was donning nidhi's role in that family.