Subbaraya Sarma was born on January 3rd 1947 in Vijayawada to a magazine publisher. He started acting when in fourth standard and was immensely inspired by then super hit Maya Bazar. He used to be bench mates with Sutti Veera Bhadra Rao, Madhavapeddi Ramesh and classmate of Malladi Venkata Krishna murthy, the well known writer. His full fledged foray into stage happened at SRR college, where he was the cultural secretary. This is where he met Jandhyala and encouraged him to write, than act and went onto collaborate with Jandhyala until his death. After college Sarma moved to Hyderabad and started working at APSRTC. He was introduced to Desiraju Hanumantha Rao, whom he considers his guru. In the direction of Hanumantha Rao, and the plays penned by Yandamuri Veerendranath (along with Kota Srinivasa Rao, Nittala Srirama Murthy, Sai etc) they have established a stage production company called 'SriNikethan' and performed across Andhra Pradesh.