[1] Son of noted writer-producer Panchu Arunachalam, Subbu first appeared as a child artist in the Malayalam film Daisy, before working in the production department of his father's P. A.
[2] He returned to acting with the television series Arasi and shot to fame following his performance in the 2010 comedy film Boss Engira Bhaskaran.
He made his acting debut at age 14 as a child artist in the Malayalam film Daisy, directed by Pratap Pothen, who was then his neighbour.
[5] The film became one of 2010's biggest commercial successes, which brought Subbu into the limelight and subsequently led to several more acting offers.
He starred in Cloud Nine Movies' Thoonga Nagaram as a tahsildar,[5] and appeared in films including Ajith Kumar's Mankatha where he played a CBI Officer, Kamal Ekambaram, as a negative role.