Sarojini Naidu was born in Hyderabad on 13 February 1879 to Aghorenath Chattopadhyay.[2] Her father was from Brahmangaon, Bikrampur, Dhaka, Bengal (now in Bangladesh).[3] Her father was a Bengali Brahmin and the principal of Nizam College.[2] He held a doctorate of Science from Edinburgh University. Her mother wrote poetry in Bengali.[2]
Drawing of Naidu by John Butler Yeats, 1896, from the frontispiece of The Golden Threshold (1905)She was the eldest of the eight siblings. Her brother Virendranath Chattopadhyay was a revolutionary, and another brother Harindranath was a poet, a dramatist, and an actor. Their family was well-regarded in Hyderabad.
Education
Sarojini Naidu passed her matriculation examination to qualify for university study, earning the highest rank, in 1891, when she was twelve.[2] From 1895 to 1898 she studied in England, at King's College, London and then Girton College, Cambridge, with a scholarship from the Nizam of Hyderabad.[4] In England, she met artists from the Aesthetic and Decadent movements.[5]
Marriage
Chattopadhyay returned to Hyderabad in 1898.[6] That same year, she married Govindaraju Naidu, a physician whom she met during her stay in England,[2] in an inter-caste marriage which has been called “groundbreaking and scandalous".[6] Both their families approved their marriage, which was long and harmonious. They had five children.[2] Their daughter Padmaja also joined the Quit India Movement, and she held several governmental positions in independent India.
