Nathuram was born on 19 March 1910 to a poor Hindu family. This was Mr. and Mrs. Goatse, although you know what always happens when government clerks try to get names right on official credentials. The couple had already had three sons and a daughter, each boy dying in infancy. Convinced that there was a curse that was dooming all their male offspring, they reared their new baby boy as a girl, making him wear a dress skirt, lacy panties, a push-up bra, and other girlie accesories, and eventually entering him into "talent competitions." This treatment earned him the nickname "Nathuram" — literally, "Ram with a nose-ring." After his younger brother was born, they started treating him as a boy again. But it was too late: the nickname stuck.