Sharmila Tagore was born in Kanpur, India, to Gitindranath Tagore, a general manager in the British India Corporation, and his wife Ira Tagore (née Barua). While Tagore's father belonged to a Bengali Hindu family, her mother came from an Assamese Hindu family, and both of them were distantly related to the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Gitindranath was the grandson of the noted painter Gaganendranath Tagore, whose own father Gunendranath had been a first cousin of the laureate. In fact, Tagore is more closely related to Rabindranath Tagore through her mother: her maternal grandmother, Latika Barua (née Tagore), was the granddaughter of Rabindranath Tagore's brother, Dwijendranath Tagore. Tagore's maternal grandfather (husband of Latika Barua née Tagore) was Jnanadabhiram Barua, the first Principal of Earl Law College in Guwahati (now known as Government Law College), himself the son of the noted social worker Gunabhiram Barua. As a member of the Tagore family, she is also a distant relative of the actress Devika Rani and the painter Abanindranath Tagore (brother of Gaganendranath Tagore).