Early Life
His childhood nickname was Binnie or Biren. Virendranath was the eldest son of Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya (Chatterjee), who was an ex-principal and professor of science at the Nizam College, and his wife in Hyderabad. Their children Sarojini Naidu and Harindranath Chattopadhyay became well-known poets. Their daughter Gannu became a Nationalist activist and introduced Viren to many of her circle in Kolkata (Calcutta). A younger son Marin became involved with Viren in political activism.
Viren received a secular and liberal education. He was a polyglot and was fluent in the Indian languages Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, as well as English; later he was to learn French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian and the Scandinavian languages as well. He matriculated in the University of Madras and received an undergraduate degree in Arts from the University of Calcutta. In Kolkata (Calcutta), through his sister Gannu (Mrinalini), already known as an advanced Nationalist, Viren was introduced to Bejoy Chandra Chatterjee, a barrister and extremist. Chatto met Sri Aurobindo’s family, especially his cousins, Kumudini and Sukumar Mitra; the former was editor of the seditious magazine, Suprabhat. For years afterwards, Viren/Chatto maintained contact with all of them.
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