Rocket Boys – the new SonyLIV web series now streaming – is a great action for the most part. As a character drama, Rocket Boys deftly balance the personal and professional worlds of its two main characters: the father of India’s nuclear program Homi Bhabha (Jim Sarbh, from Made in Heaven) and father of India’s space program Vikram Sarabhai (Ishwak Singh, from Paatal Lok). At times, Rocket Boys – written and directed entirely by Abhay Pannu – reflects the inner struggles, pursuits and challenges of the characters. It captures their brilliance and perseverance (beyond their friendship), but also doesn’t mind the fact that Bhabha and Sarabhai don’t always deliver on their promises.
While Sarabhai is more moderate, more in touch with enhancing the lives of the unprivileged, it is thanks to the ferocious Bhabha that Rocket Boys touches on the eternal debate about great minds. Geniuses and people with purpose – from Michael Jordan to Bhabha – are selfish. They don’t think about what’s good for everyone, and don’t care about other people’s egos, feelings, and mental states. Bhabha didn’t become the guy we know him by waiting around, he took the opportunity and pushed forward. At the same time, the Rocket Boys are smart enough to prove that this lifestyle makes strong enemies – though SonyLIV The series happily slips into deep conspiracy territory during its run.
The Rocket Boys are also smart enough to admit that the opportunities that come their way – and this is true of both Bhabha and Sarabhai – are partly down to their favor. The eight-episode SonyLIV series never shyes away from dissecting that, though elsewhere it gets caught up in seeing them as saviors in ways that feel too simplistic.
An established entertainment, in addition to providing us with a window into the confluence of science and politics, Rocket Boys – set across three decades, the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s – offers sketching the world before and after – independent India. It embodies the hopes, needs, aspirations and demands of a brave new India. But it’s not always a pretty picture. With the inclusion of privileged children in the picture, Rocket Boys shows how elitism underpins egalitarianism in democratic India.
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And elsewhere, Rocket Boys serve as a reminder that science is sometimes so little about science. Bhabha may have been a great physicist, but first and foremost he was a performer. It is generally accepted that Bhabha was too lenient with India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (Rajit Kapur, from The Making of the Mahatma). While some of Bhabha’s opponents are bearing fruit and being ignored, Bhabha has appealed to India’s political elite with her showmanship. Rocket Boys are sad proof that people would rather invest in something good than something that works out better.
All of this comes together on the new SonyLIV series thanks to writer-director Pannu – formerly an associate director of Amazon Prime Video series Mumbai Diaries 11/26 – who is working on story ideas from Abhay Koranne (Super Hero Bhavesh Joshi). Pannu co-wrote Rocket Boys dialogues with lyricist Kausar Munir (83, Gunjan Saxena). For someone who’s never made a feature film or feature-length film project, this is confident filmmaking – sure enough, Rocket Boys aren’t afraid to move at their own pace. it. Pannu’s direction, along with editing by Maahir Zaveri, is very good at setting the tone and conveying emotion. They know exactly how much time has to linger in the moments so you get a feel for what the characters are going through and hint at what hasn’t been said and is happening on the surface.
Pannu is not a creator on Rocket Boys. That credit goes to Batla House director Nikkhil Advani, along with the Emmay Entertainment production team and fellow Rocket Boys producer Siddharth Roy Kapur Films of Roy Kapur. This is the second time an Advani project has listed its “creators” in this quirky ad style – the aforementioned Mumbai Diaries is the other – in which the manufacturers are named together. with an individual.
Harshvir Oberai’s cinematography, combined with Meghna Gandhi’s brilliant production design, is very reminiscent of the era in Rocket Boys. And after his huge success with the theme for Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta . Story, it makes sense that SonyLIV and the Rocket Boys team would turn to composer Achint Thakkar. In some places, the Rocket Boys soundtrack unintentionally or intentionally evokes a popular Bollywood soundtrack. But outside of that, Thakkar does some great work – in addition to (again) delivering a subtle introductory theme.
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Ishwak Singh as Vikram Sarabhai in Rocket Boys
Image source: SonyLIV
When Rocket Boys premiered, it was 1962 and China had just declared war on India. Bhabha and Sarabhai’s relationship is at a normal level. While the pragmatic Bhabha believes that India’s best bet is to announce that it is about to develop an atomic bomb – as a deterrent – the peaceful Sarabhai is appalled. Believing this was the wrong approach, he resigned. The new SonyLIV series then leaps 22 years back to 1940. While studying at Cambridge, Sarabhai was caught in The Blitz and decided to move back to India. Soon after, thanks to the connection of his father Ambalal Sarabhai (Muni Jha), Vikram goes to Bangalore at the Indian Institute of Science to do research with Nobel Prize winning physicist CV Raman (Karthik Srinivasan).
Elsewhere in 1940 at Calcutta College of Science, Bhabha was working as a professor. Academy founder Medhi Raza (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) is trying to recruit him for good, but Bhabha knows he’s on for bigger things. He also seems to be cautious about Raza’s funding coming from the Muslim League. By the time Sarabhai arrived in Bangalore, Bhabha had established a cosmic ray unit at IIS under Raman. However, he wasn’t happy about leaving Calcutta behind, with the IIS funding far different from what Raza could provide. Bhabha and Sarabhai’s relationship becomes that of a mentor-mentor, while the former also develops a rivalry with Raza, who feels he is under review at every stage due to his unique backgrounds and skills. by Bhabha.
Although Raza is a character created for the Rocket Boys, he is a version of the famous astrophysicist Meghnad Saha, who, like Raza, comes from a lower caste family, is Bhabha’s opponent and Nehru opposition to a privileged class. Raza is not the only fictional character in the SonyLIV series. Saba Azad plays Bhabha Parvana “Pipsy” Irani’s abandoned lover, whom I imagine the creators decorated like a foil to represent Bhabha’s obsession with his work, and as a counterweight to the love of Sarabhai and his wife, dancer and choreographer Mrinalini Sarabhai (Regina Cassandra). . Through Pipsy and Mrinalini, Rocket Boys reveal the male leads’ flaws in the individual department – and it may draw parallels by creating Pipsy.
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Regina Cassandra as Mrinalini Sarabhai in Rocket Boys
Image source: SonyLIV
Rocket Boys’ lead roles may be male and its world is male-dominated, but the new SonyLIV series never loses sight of the fact that there are women on the sidelines supporting Bhabha and Sarabhai – but they do not reciprocate their interest and appreciation. And it also makes for some clever humour, omitting traditional romance to show how selfish men can be.
The dynamic between Bhabha and Sarabhai is amusing and funny in places – they joke and make cases of each other – although Rocket Boys’ attempts to be funny have not always been successful. In an early episode, it takes on a smug tone against British colonialism. I get that idea but not only does it feel out of date, but the pranks against the British are distracting and don’t really serve a purpose. In addition to filling in some sort of patriotism checkbox. It’s unnecessary and a rare sign of Rocket Boys going too far with its material.
But overall, Rocket Boys remained stable as it ascended into the stratosphere. Through two genius leaders, SonyLIV The series paints the vision and prospects of a newly independent nation, where hundreds of millions of people envisioned and worked for a brighter, bigger, and equal future for all. Along the way, it tackles issues of caste, gender, privilege, religion and ideology – themes that are still fundamental to India today.
However, for all of Bhabha’s exploits, his promise was not fulfilled. In a first episode, when Bhabha gives a moving speech about energy self-reliance – a dream we have yet to realize – and a future where nuclear power will take over from coal to fuel lighting up the whole of India, Rocket Boys feels like a product of science fiction. After all, more than 70 years later, the country’s energy needs are still largely met by coal. Late last year, the new coal mines were auctioned off. On top of that, India is the world’s second largest coal importer. Currently, nuclear power accounts for only 3% of India’s energy. Figures for coal? Over 70. If Bhabha were still alive today, I imagine it would be a day of utter disappointment.
Rocket Boys feel nostalgic for a more optimistic India – an India that has the world at its feet, an India that has risen from centuries of oppression and an India where pluralism is encouraged. encourage. An India where anything is possible. In these dark and sad times, where everything India once stood for has been razed to the ground, the Rocket Boys are both a necessity and a response to the country we have become.
All eight episodes of Rocket Boys are out on Friday, February 4th at 12am IST on SonyLIV in India and worldwide.
