Corona Daily 087: Inseparable

In 1997, when Joefred and Ralfred were born with a gap of three minutes, their parents couldn’t tell them apart. Along with an older brother, they grew up in a one-story house in Meerut, a satellite town of New Delhi. Their parents were teachers in a Christian school. In their neighbourhood in Meerut, there were not many Christian families.

Joefi and Ralfi as they were called went to the same school. Identical twins tend to share a special bond; they cooperate more and are usually gentle with each other. It is also a norm that as children, twins wear identical clothes. What was a little unusual was that Joefred and Ralfred continued this habit in teens and beyond. They dressed the same at parties, weddings and community functions. They wore matching clothes, and trimmed beards to the same length. Next door neighbours confessed they couldn’t tell who was who. Both were around six feet tall, with similar muscular build.

 The parents, in their defense, said they didn’t raise the twins to copy one another, it was their own initiative.

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Not surprisingly, Joefred and Ralfred went to the same college. This was away from home, in Coimbatore. The committed pair graduated in computer engineering from Karunya University. Neither Coimbatore nor Meerut had big international companies that would give them suitable jobs.

Both applied to companies in India’s technology hubs, and managed to get their first jobs in Hyderabad. Not in the same company, though. Joefred joined Accenture, while Ralphred was recruited by Hyundai Mubis. With substantial research, the twins had mapped out their future path. They wanted to move first to South Korea, and after working there for a few years, to Germany. Had the pandemic not happened, they could have already left for Seoul, and their life story would have taken a different turn.

However, once Hyderabad went into lockdown, the brothers started working from home. They spent a few months working from home in Hyderabad. When everyone understood the pandemic would last for more than a year, Joefred and Ralfred decided they should move back to Meerut and spend the locked up time with their family. For computer engineers working for software companies, it doesn’t really matter where they are located. Had they not taken that decision, they would still be working from their Hyderabad home.

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Last month, on 23 April, both celebrated their 24th birthday quietly with their family. In 2020, stuck in Hyderabad, they had sought their parents’ blessings over the phone.

The following day, on 24 April, both Joefred and Ralfred tested positive. After a week of fever, and discomfort in lungs, the family decided to move them to Anand Hospital, a reputed private facility. Realising their oxygen levels were low, the doctors put them on ventilators in the intensive care unit, a few beds apart, Joefred in bed 10, and Ralfred in 14.

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A week ago, on the morning of 13 May, Joefred, the twin older by three minutes, had his oxygen level fall to 48. The twins’ mother was sat outside the ICU. The doctors requested her to go home. In the afternoon, they broke the news of Joefred’s death to the parents.  

When the parents went back to the ICU to check on Ralfred, he kept asking: “Where is Joefi? Where is Joefi?”

“He has been moved to a bigger hospital in Delhi.” Said the mother. The parents had agreed that’s what they would tell Ralfred. They thought his condition would get worse if he was told what happened.

“You are lying, mom. You are lying.” Said Ralfred as loudly as he could through the oxygen mask.

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The next morning, Ralfred died. The depression on suspecting the news about his twin probably hastened his death.

His father told the Times of India he intuitively knew both sons would come back home, or both wouldn’t. “Whatever happened to one, always happened to the other.”

Under a young Neem tree, Joefred and Ralfred are buried in two coffins, but a single grave.

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Ravi