This nondescript building, currently housing a restaurant, remains a treasure house of memories of the illustrious family of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) former Governor Duvvuri Subbarao. Located on the Rangoonmeda Street in the heart of the city, it changes its form each time it changes hands.
According to the family friends of the former chief of the apex bank, his father late Duvvuri Mallikarjuna Rao, who worked as Assistant Public Prosecutor in the city courts, lived in a rented building in the same area before he purchased this house. Later, it was named as ‘Mohan Manjal’ in memory of one of the Duvvuri’s family members. The family of nine members lived in the house until Mr. Subbarao’s father expired. Later, it was sold to a city-based medical practitioner to become a hospital. It became a restaurant after it changed hands again.
Mr. Rao went to the municipal elementary school and upper primary school at Venkataraopet Street nearby from this house before he moved to the Sainik School at Korukonda. G. Valliswar, the schoolmate of Mr. Subba Rao and editor of the ‘Andhra Pradesh’ magazine, said Mr. Duvvuri Subbarao would frequently visit his hometown even after he became an IAS officer, to spend time with his mother. Taking a stroll on the busy Ramachandraraopet Road and buying cow milk at the cattle shed run by Gosamrakashna Samithi were said to be his favourite pastimes.
When Mr. Subba Rao visited to the town to take part in a civic reception held on his elevation as the RBI governor a few years ago, he was overtaken by nostalgia and was emotion-struck. He took time off from the busy schedule, came out from a suite in a star hotel and walked up to his ancestral house as a commoner, reminiscing the moments he spent in the house as a boy. The city lost connection with the Duvvuri family as no one from the family is residing at their native place now.
