Page:The Aristocracy of Southern India.djvu/195

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SRI RAJAH A. V. JUGGA RAO BAHADUR GARU,

ZEMINDAR OF SHER MUHAMMADPURAM

(VIZAGAPATAM DISTRICT).



Of handsome person and with fascinating manners and a brilliant intellect, Sri Rajah A. V. Jugga Rao Bahadur Garu, the subject of our sketch, is a gentleman of varied attainments, and has rendered such signal service to the scientific world as cannot fail to raise him in the estimation of many a savant both of the East and the West. He has been much abroad; he has travelled through Europe and many other foreign lands, and his mind being stored with all he has seen and heard his conversation is most agreeable and instructive.

It is said that the family from which Sri Jugga Rao Garu has sprung is an ancient one, and that some of his ancestors held respectable and high posts under the Nizam of Hyderabad, prominent of them being Mr. Ankitam Sriramulu Garu, who was Dewan to the Nawab of Masulipatam. Rai Bahadur A. V. Narasinga Rao Garu, the son of Dewan Sriramulu Garu, was born in 1827. Mr. Narasinga Rao lost his father when but an infant; and so he was taken to Vizagapatam and brought up under the care of his maternal grandfather. His education was, at first entrusted to Mr. Porter, and then to the Rev. J. Hay, D. D., the father of modern education in Northern Circars. Mr. Narasinga Rao entered the service of the East India Company when he was young, and early rose to the position of Deputy Collector through sheer dint of energy, good character, and perseverance. He married Sri Achayamma Garu, the daughter of Mr. Godav Jugga Rao Garu.