Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, also spelt as Sarat Chandra Chatterjee and Saratchandra Chatterji (; 15 September 1876 or ৩১ শে ভাদ্র ১২৮৩ বঙ্গাব্দ – 16 January 1938), was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. Most of his works deal with the lifestyle, tragedy and struggle of the village people and the contemporary social practices that prevailed in Bengal. He remains the most popular, translated, and adapted Indian author of all time. Early life Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was born on 15 September 1876 (৩১ শে ভাদ্র, ১২৮৩ বঙ্গাব্দ), in a Bengali Brahmin family in Debanandapur, a small village in Hooghly, West Bengal. His father Matilal and mother Bhuvanmohini had five children—two daughters (Anila and Sushila) and three sons (Sarat Chandra, Prabhas Chandra, and Prakash Chandra). Sarat Chandra was their second child. Sarat Chandra's grandfather was a very wealthy man but he lost everything. The Preface of his monumental book Srikanta quotes him: "My childhood and youth were passed in great poverty. I received almost no education for want of means. From my father I inherited nothing except, as I believe, his restless spirit and his keen interest in literature. The first made me a tramp and sent me out tramping the whole of India quite early, and the second made me a dreamer all my life. Father was a great scholar, and he had tried his hand at stories and novels, dramas and poems, in short, every branch of literature, but never could finish anything. I have not his work now—somehow it got lost; but I remember poring over those incomplete mss. over and over again in my childhood, and many a night I kept awake regretting their incompleteness and thinking what might have been their conclusion if finished. Probably this led to my writing short stories when I was barely seventeen." Poverty forced the family to live for long periods in Bhuvanmohini's father Kedarnath Gangopadhyay's home in Bhagalpur, Bihar. Sarat Chandra was a daring, adventure-loving boy. His education began at an informal village school [pathsala] and later he joined Hooghly Branch High School. He was a good student and got a double promotion that enabled him to skip a grade. He passed his Entrance Examination (public examination at the end of Class X) in 1894. He entered Tejnarayan Jubilee College. He tutored a relative's children who paid his tuition in return. After two years' study,