FILM REVIEW

ROCKETRY :
The Hindi film Mission Mangal tells the story of India’s chutzpah-laden
Mars mission. The web series Rocket Boys traces the roots of the Indian
space programme through the twinned journeys of pioneering scientists
Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Bhabha. One name is missing from this victory
parade, suggests Rocketry – The Nambi Effect.

Rocketry stars R Madhavan as Indian Space Research Organisation

scientist Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely accused of selling information
on India’s cryogenic programme to Pakistan in 1994. The fabrication not
only ruined Narayanan’s life but also set back the Indian space programme
by a few years, claims Rocketry.

Narayanan’s experience, detailed in his memoir Ready To Fire – How India

and I Survived the ISRO Spy Case (written with Arun Ram), is a cautionary
tale of how a career can be derailed simply by innuendo and the might of
the state. Implicated by the Kerala police and the Union government’s
Intelligence Bureau for reasons that remain murky, Narayanan spent
decades trying to clear his name.

It’s a typically Indian tragedy, both of its time – the Congress party’s reign –
and timeless. However, Madhavan, who has also written and
directed Rocketry, ignores the larger implications of the ISRO spy case to
instead fan present-day propaganda about the blight that apparently
characterised the pre-Narendra Modi years. (For good measure, the prime
minister’s voice and visage show up in the final scene.)

A thick air of conspiracy hangs over Rocketry, which has been released in
Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada. The film harks back to the
days of the “Foreign Hand” and heavily hints at the involvement of the
United States in Narayanan’s fall. Before it launches into its main
argument, Rocketry lurches from one amateurish eureka moment to the
next. Narayanan creates a stir wherever he goes, whether it is at Princeton
University in the late 1960s, or France, where he teaches his Continental
peers a thing or two about rocket propulsion. There are moments in the
157-minute film when it appears that the entire Indian aerospace
programme is being steered by one man and his associates.

At Princeton, Narayanan ingratiates himself with the professor Luigi Crocco

by offering to cook and clean in exchange for tuition. When it’s time for
Narayanan to return, Crocco regretfully says that he has lost his domestic
help.

This singularly brilliant scientist is a chick magnet too. In America, France

and Russia, women express an admiration for Narayanan that cannot be
described as strictly professional.

The family man has a wife, Meena (Simran), back home, and an
unwavering eye on the prize. Like other scientists who have achieved
miracles on limited funding, Narayanan hustles for technological upgrades
that boost India into an elite club whose gatekeeper is the United States.

In the present, Narayanan sits down for a television interview where he

revisits his vilification. Shah Rukh Khan, in a heart-stopping cameo, turns
on the charm as the movie star interviewer who gives Narayanan the
respect he has been denied (Suriya plays the role in the non-Hindi
versions).

The absence of context in Madhavan’s script is evident in the moment

when Narayanan tells the actor, how many people, Mr Khan, are being
made scapegoats in the name of patriotism? It’s a topic with which Khan is
unfortunately familiar, especially after recent events.
If there was an opportunity to link Narayanan’s plight to countless other
Indians victimised by fake police cases or hounded by intelligence
agencies, this was it – but it is ignored by a film with other aims on its mind.

The narrative gains poignancy when it examines the effects of the

accusations on Narayanan and his family. Tortured in custody and
shunned by society, Narayanan must draw on every last reserve of
strength to pull through his nightmare.

A stronger performer might have better conveyed Narayanan’s agony.

Madhavan’s dedication, while undeniable, fails to challenge him to rise
above his limitations and move beyond flat dialogue delivery and a handful
of expressions.

Among the noteworthy actors is Sam Mohan as Unni, one of Narayanan’s

associates who learns the hard way that feelings cannot come in the way
of progress. Shah Rukh Khan pops up every now and then to leaven a film
that tells a necessary story but tells it shoddily and without curiosity.