Simultaneously, a morose mysterious man, Eashwar, always moving around with his Rottweiler, goes to see Naushad, a software engineer who happily lives with his eight-year-old son Imaan.
A few months ago, Naushad had accidentally hit and killed Eashwar's wife Geetha and son Naveen in a car crash.
To solve this problem, they decide to hold a cycling race across a road in Elliot's Beach so that the winner may make the decision, which has to be accepted by the other person.
Sandhya, who is ahead of Karthik and leading the race, rides straight into the kite thread, which cuts her neck, fatally injuring her.
He travels to Munnar to see them and feels happy again, while learning from a grateful Naushad that Imaan suffered from cardiomyopathy and Sandhya's heart had saved his life.
However, Karthik reemerges back from the grave and attacks Eashwar - this time overpowering him and breaking his arm and leg, paralyzing him for life albeit sparing him alive.
A now-paralyzed Eashwar is sent to hospital and treated for his condition, while Karthik escorts both Imaan and Naushad back to Chennai from Munnar and makes them stay with himself in his new house, which he had constructed for Sandhya.
[15] Initially, when Vishnuvardhan started the project in September 2006, he had signed up Surya to play the lead role, pairing up with the Mumbai model and former child actress Hansika Motwani, who was to make her debut in the Tamil film industry.
[24] Trisha eventually got the role of Sandhya after several actresses, including Hansika Motwani, Anushka Shetty, Nila, and Ileana, were considered and opted out.
[23] Besides, she has an "interesting quality", which is her "innocent smile irrespective of her mischievousness", Vishnuvardhan states, which was "very essential" for the character and the reason for giving her the role.
[23] For the technical crew, Vishnuvardhan roped in mostly "his usual members", who had worked with the director on his earlier projects, including Yuvan Shankar Raja as the music director, Nirav Shah as the cinematographer, Sreekar Prasad as the editor, Pa. Vijay as the lyricist, Thiyagarajan as the stunt co-ordinator and Vishnuvardhan's wife, Anu Vardhan, as the costume designer.
For Sarvam, Dinesh and Geetha joined Kalyan as the choreographer and Manu Jagadh replaced as Remiyan as the art director.
[32] Before Vishnuvardhan left for Cannes, he had already shot a few scenes at Marina Beach in Chennai that did not involve Arya, who was still busy with Naan Kadavul.
In Munnar a romantic duet between Arya and Trisha was shot for which grand sets had been erected by art director Manu Jagadh.
[42] In June 2008, two people were killed in an accident at the shooting spot, which was located at an under-construction building near the Gemini flyover in Chennai.
A folk song ("Sutta Suriyana") was shot in a Chennai studio, choreographed by Dinesh and focusing on the lead couple, Arya and Trisha.
[46] Another song ("Neethane"), which was choreographed by Kalyan, was filmed on the new bridge at the Kathipara Junction, Chennai, and the Indian Air Force base at Cholavaram.
[48][49] In the first weeks of February, the last song, a romantic duet, choreographed by Dinesh, involving the lead couple once more ("Siragugal"), was shot at the Rann of Kutch, a saline clay desert in Gujarat, close to the Pakistan border,[49][50] according to Vishnuvardhan, a location that was never before used or seen in a Tamil film.
According to the director, two of the songs ("Neethane" and "Sutta Suriyana") were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja even before Vishnuvardhan's previous venture, Billa, had started, when Sarvam was first announced in October 2006, nearly two years earlier.
[53] The song "Adada Vaa" was originally composed for the film Aayirathil Oruvan, for which Yuvan Shankar Raja was first signed to score the music, but which he left in the midst, after he had a fall out with director Selvaraghavan.
[56][57][58][59] After a muted publicity campaign, Ayngaran International Films finally released a teaser poster in January 2009 that showed the five main characters, Karthik, Sandhya, Imaan, Naushad and Eashwar, on their website along with some other images.
[60] The trailer of the film was screened during the interval of the Vijay-starring Villu, which was released during Pongal 2009 on 12 January 2009 and was an Ayngaran International production as well.
Just before the Sarvam soundtrack was launched, Ayngaran released promotional audio clips of the songs of a duration of nearly four minutes overall,[65] following which another one-minute teaser trailer that features video clippings of three of the songs ("Adada Vaa", "Siragugal" and "Sutta Suriyana") was released by Ayngaran one month after the audio launch.
[67] Upon release, Sarvam gained mixed reviews by critics, with the majority claiming that the film failed to live up to the expectations.
[69] Like Sify, Rangarajan, too, praised the technicians, describing Nirav Shah's camera works as "excellent" and Yuvan Shankar Raja's melodies as "lilting" and the score as "foot-tapping", while the lead pair, consisting of Arya and Trisha, was cited as "attractive".
[70] She, too, praised the technical crew of the film, labelling Yuvan Shankar Raja's background score as "marvellous", which "just proves how good he can be", Nirav Shah's cinematography as "scintillating", the visuals as "astonishing" and Anu Vardhan's costumes as "excellent", while Manu Jagadh has done "wonders with his sets" and Sreekar Prasad's editing "fits the bill".
[70] Overall, she states that the film is worth a watch for the "stunning visuals", "musical score" and "Trisha's sequence", who she says is "perhaps the only shining part of the movie itself".