Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1901 at Mughalsarai, a small railway town seven miles from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. His father was a school teacher who died when Lal Bahadur Shastri was only a year and half old. His mother, still in her twenties, took her three children to her father's house and settled down there. As he grew up, Lal Bahadur Shastri became more and more interested in the country's struggle for freedom from foreign yoke. He was greatly impressed by Mahatma Gandhi's denunciation of Indian Princes for their support of British rule in India. Lal Bahadur Sashtri was only eleven at the time, but the process that was end day to catapult him to the national stage had already begun in his mind. Lal Bahadur Shastri joined the Kashi Vidya Peeth in Varanasi, one of the many national institutions set up in defiance of the British rule. There, he came under the influence of the greatest intellectuals, and nationalists of the country. 'Shastri' was the bachelor's degree awarded to him by the Vidya Peeth but has stuck in the minds of the people as part of his name.