Actually, before Pamaram, Cyril's [left] art director friend Ashok Kumar had asked him to help in a film. Sabu says Kumar, Bharatan's nephew, "had agreed to do a small Malayalam film, Iyer The Great, but he wanted to do a bigger Telugu film at the same time. He asked me to take over as the second unit art director for Iyer The Great. [Rajiv Anchal was the art director]. I was not interested, but Ashok insisted and I did it. It was an enjoyable experience."

What started as a seven-day assignment lasted seven months. On the last day of shooting, Bharatan happened to see a miniature of the Standard Herald car that Sabu Cyril had made and was very impressed. So he asked him to make a shark for his next film, Pamaram.

"After that, he asked me to do [the art direction for] the entire film. I told him I didn't know anything about art direction. But he said he was an art director before turning director, and he would help me.

Bharatan was the art director of most of the films that Sabu Cyril's uncle had shot. "Since I liked Bharatan as a person and the working atmosphere on his unit, I agreed. That was how I became an art director. There was no looking back after that."