Joefred and Ralfred, 24, had a special bond. Although their parents gave them similar names, they said they did not raise the twins to copy each other. Still, neighbors said that where you saw one, you saw the other, even after they reached adulthood.
They grew up, together with an older brother, in a one-story cottage in Meerut, a satellite city of New Delhi. His parents were teachers at a Christian school. Her family was one of the few Christians in a mixed middle-class neighborhood.
When they were children, they would hit cricket balls together on a vacant lot. Together they hunched over the carrom table, a popular Indian game played on a wooden board.
Joefred was three minutes older. But there were none of those big brother and little brother problems.
“They were the same,” says his father, Gregory Raymond Raphael. “They argued, yes. But I never saw them get hurt. “
They called each other by nicknames: Joefi and Ralfi.
As young people, they studied together: the same year, the same university in South India, the same subject, computer science. They wore their hair in the same style. They looked like mirror images.
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Few people, other than their parents, could tell them apart. They were the same height, around six feet, and the same muscular build. Friends said that at weddings, birthday parties, and almost every community event, Joefred and Ralfred not only dressed the same, but were in the crowd together.
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