Most twins look like two peas in a pod — but Maria and I couldn’t look more different if we tried. We don’t even look like we have the same parents, let alone having been born at the same time.”

One of the great things about them is that they are both lovely, easy to identify and has instilled in humans once again that all skin type can dwell together in peace, whether in or outside the womb.

The mother-of-three had already lost her husband after he had killed himself in a fit of desperation amid mounting debts and a failed dream.

Even then, she still had hope.

But after selling her hair, she was faced with the prospect of having nothing more of value, no way to pay the creditors demanding their money, and no food in the cupboard.

Before his death, Prema and her husband had worked in a brick kiln in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, making just enough to scrape a living together for their young family. But they had hoped for more. Her husband took out a loan to start his own brick kiln, but the plans failed to take off. In a moment of desperation last year, he killed himself.

The pressure fell solely on Prema to not only earn enough to feed, clothe and house herself and her three children, but also to pay back the money they owed for the failed business venture. And for a while she managed, taking her two youngest to work with her.

"When I go to work I get 200 rupees ($2.80) per day, which is enough to run our family," Prema explains to the BBC.

But she became ill, which meant she couldn't earn as much.

"I couldn't carry a heavy load of bricks. I stayed home for most of the time due to a fever."