“Why are you fat, and why is she thin,” a puzzled middle-aged man asked, as my identical twin Katy and I strolled into a restaurant in central Mumbai for a post-yoga samosa. It wasn’t the first time we had been asked this question – but each time it hurt just as much, and stoked a decades-long resentment towards my sister, who was always being told she was better looking than me.
As children, we had relished in our identicalness and were joined at the hip. Physically, the only way people (even family members) could tell us apart was by our face shape. I had a slightly rounder face than Katy, with chubby cheeks that earned me the nickname Chipmunk growing up. Katy and I got the same grades, had the same interests, and on birthdays and Christmases got given identical gifts – but in different colours. We were inextricably “one”.
