Raksha Bandhan 2020! From Mahesh Babu and Manjula to Sumanth and Supriya, real life brother-sister duos of Tollywood

Raksha Bandhan is back and it needs no introduction. The Hindi festival celebrates the bond between brothers and sisters, and on the auspicious occasion, sisters tie a sacred thread around the wrist of brothers - a symbolic representation of the strong relationship between siblings and their commitment to each other. Over the years, Telugu cinema has glorified the eternal bond between a brother and sister through path-breaking films like ‘Rakta Sambandham’, ‘Chelleli Kapuram’, ‘Muddula Mavayya’, ‘Hitler’, ‘Puttintiki Ra Chelli’, ‘Arjun’ and many more.

In real life too, there are several brother-sister duos in the Telugu film fraternity who are quite popular for their camaraderie. As we celebrate the festival of love and bonding between the siblings, here’s a look at some of the most-loved brother-sister duos in Tollywood.

Mahesh Babu and Manjula

Manjula Swaroop is the elder sister of Superstar Mahesh Babu and one among the three daughters born to Krishna Ghattamaneni and Indira Devi. While Mahesh started his film career as a child artist and gradually went on to become one among the leading stars of Tollywood, Manjula suffered a huge setback before her big break itself. The beautiful actress who wished to carry her father's legacy forward was roped in opposite Balakrishna for SV Krishna Reddy directorial. Sadly, due to severe backlash from Krishna’s fans, she had to back down.

However, after portraying supporting roles in Malayalam and Tamil, Manjula acquired immense fame for bankrolling the National Award-winning film ‘Show’ in 2002. She also played the leading role in the Neelakanta directorial.

One among the popular brother-sister duos to play leading roles, Varun Tej and Niharika Konidela are children to actor-cum-producer Nagendra Babu, younger brother of Megastar Chiranjeevi. While Varun Tej is going great guns with back-to-back superhits with ‘F2: Fun & Frustration’ and ‘Gaddalakonda Ganesh’, Niharika is still in search for her maiden success on the silver screen. However, the 26-year-old actress has acted and produced successful web series’ like Muddapappu Avakai and Madhouse. Recently, she officially introduced her fiancé Chaitanya Jonnalagadda through Instagram.

All children of ‘Dialogue King’ Mohan Babu are successful actors in the Telugu film industry. Before ‘Anaganaga O Dheerudu’ in 2011, Manchu Lakshmi appeared in several American TV shows and commercials. The 42-year-old multifaceted lady bagged the Nandi Award (Best Villain) for her debut film ‘Anaganaga O Dheerudu’ followed by Filmfare awards in 2013 and 2014.

Manchu Vishnu is an actor, producer and entrepreneur. Along with film production, the 38-year-old heads a queue of international schools in Hyderabad. After a 3-year break from films, young brother Manchu Manoj is making his acting comeback with Aham Brahmasmi. The multilingual film was launched in March by Ram Charan.

Rakul Preet Singh’s brother Aman Preet Singh will be making his acting debut with the upcoming film ‘Ninne Pelladatha’. The romantic-drama directed by Dasari Lawrence was launched in 2019 February at Annapurna Studios and the first look poster was launched by Akkineni Nagarjuna. Apart from this film, Aman played the lead role as a CIA agent in the English-Hindi bilingual Sedition.

Along with big south films like Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2, Sivakarthikeyan’s Ayalaaan and Chandrasekhar Yeleti’s film opposite Nithiin, Rakul Preet Singh is hands-full in Bollywood with John Abraham and Jacqueline Fernandez’s Attack, Arjun Kapoor’s cross border romantic-comedy and a multistarrer with popular director Indra Kumar.

Sumanth and Supriya are one among Tollywood's most talented siblings. Born to producer Surendra Yarlagadda and the eldest daughter of Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sumanth kicked-off his acting career with Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Prema Katha’ and delivered his first box-office hit with ‘Satyam’ in 2003. It was Sekhar Kammula’s rom-com ‘Godavari’ that brought incredible accolades to the 45-year-old actor.

On the other side, Supriya made her on-screen debut with ‘Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi’ which also introduced Pawan Kalyan as the protagonist. After a long gap of 22 years, she returned to the silver screen with the 2018 spy-thriller ‘Goodachari’ and portrayed the complex role of Nadiya Qureshi to perfection.