Rocket Boys Review: India Comes of Age in SonyLIV’s Terrific New Series

Rocket Boys — the brand new SonyLIV internet sequence now streaming — is, largely talking, a masterly act. As a personality drama, Rocket Boys deftly balances the non-public {and professional} worlds of its twin leads: the daddy of India’s nuclear programme Homi Bhabha (Jim Sarbh, from Made in Heaven), and the daddy of India’s house programme Vikram Sarabhai (Ishwak Singh, from Paatal Lok). Ruminative at occasions, Rocket Boys — written and directed in its entirety by debutant Abhay Pannu — displays on the characters’ inner struggles, pursuits, and challenges. It chronicles their brilliance and perseverance (other than their friendship), however it’s additionally not afraid to reckon with the truth that Bhabha and Sarabhai did not at all times ship on their guarantees.

Whereas the milder Sarabhai was extra in contact with uplifting the lives of the unprivileged, it is by means of the ferocious Bhabha that Rocket Boys touches upon that everlasting debate about nice minds. Geniuses and males of function — from Michael Jordan to, properly, Bhabha — are egocentric. They do not take into consideration what’s good for everybody, nor do they care about others’ ego, emotions, and psychological state. Bhabha did not change into the man we all know him by ready round, he grabbed alternatives and pushed ahead. On the similar time, Rocket Boys is sensible sufficient to point out that this lifestyle creates highly effective enemies — although the SonyLIV sequence fortunately slides into conspiracy territory deep into its run.

Rocket Boys can be sensible sufficient to acknowledge that the alternatives that got here their manner — and that is true for each Bhabha and Sarabhai — have been partly because of their privilege. The eight-episode SonyLIV sequence by no means shies away from dissecting that, although somewhere else, it does get carried away in projecting them as saviours in ways in which really feel too easy.

As a chunk of longform leisure, past giving us a window into the confluence of science and politics, Rocket Boys — set throughout three many years, the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s — delivers in sketching out the world of pre- and post-Independence India. It showcases the hopes, wants, aspirations, and calls for of a courageous new India. However it’s not at all times a fairly image. With a mixture of privileged youngsters within the image, Rocket Boys exhibits how elitism paved over egalitarianism in democratic India.

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And somewhere else, Rocket Boys additionally serves as a reminder of how science is so little about science at occasions. Bhabha may need been an incredible physicist, however he was at the beginning, a showman. It is typically accepted that Bhabha overpromised to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (Rajit Kapur, from The Making of the Mahatma). Whereas a few of Bhabha’s rivals have been delivering outcomes and being ignored, Bhabha wooed India’s political elite together with his showmanship. Rocket Boys is miserable proof that folks would somewhat spend money on one thing cool than one thing that has a greater shot.

All of this comes collectively on the brand new SonyLIV sequence because of writer-director Pannu — beforehand an affiliate director on the Amazon Prime Video sequence Mumbai Diaries 26/11 — who’s working off a narrative idea from Abhay Koranne (Bhavesh Joshi Superhero). Pannu co-wrote the Rocket Boys dialogues with lyricist Kausar Munir (83, Gunjan Saxena). For somebody who has by no means made a function or longform mission, that is assured filmmaking — assured in its talents, Rocket Boys shouldn’t be afraid to maneuver at its tempo. Pannu’s course, coupled with Maahir Zaveri’s modifying, is sweet at establishing tone and conveying emotion. They know precisely how lengthy to linger on moments to make you’re feeling what the characters are going by means of, and to trace at what’s left unsaid and occurring past the floor.

Pannu is not the creator on Rocket Boys although. That credit score goes to Batla Home director Nikkhil Advani, alongside his manufacturing banner Emmay Leisure and fellow Rocket Boys producer Siddharth Roy Kapur’s Roy Kapur Movies. That is the second time an Advani mission has listed its “creators” on this bizarre corporatised vogue — the aforementioned Mumbai Diaries was the opposite one — the place manufacturing homes are named alongside a person.

Harshvir Oberai’s cinematography, together with Meghna Gandhi’s stellar manufacturing design, conjures the interval period properly on Rocket Boys. And after his immense success with the theme for Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, it is sensible that SonyLIV and Rocket Boys crew would flip to composer Achint Thakkar. In a few locations, the Rocket Boys soundtrack unknowingly or knowingly evokes a preferred Bollywood rating. However outdoors of that, Thakkar does some nice work — along with (as soon as once more) delivering an beautiful intro theme.

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Ishwak Singh as Vikram Sarabhai in Rocket Boys
Photograph Credit score: SonyLIV

When Rocket Boys opens, it is 1962 and China has simply declared struggle on India. Bhabha and Sarabhai’s relationship is at its nadir. Whereas the pragmatic Bhabha believes India’s finest guess is to announce they’re near creating an atom bomb — as a deterrent — the peaceable Sarabhai is aghast. Satisfied that that is the improper strategy, he tenders his resignation. The brand new SonyLIV sequence then jumps 22 years again to 1940. Finding out at Cambridge, Sarabhai is caught in The Blitz and decides to return to India. Shortly after, because of his father Ambalal Sarabhai’s (Muni Jha) connections, Vikram leads to Bangalore on the Indian Institute of Science to do analysis with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist C.V. Raman (Karthik Srinivasan).

Elsewhere in 1940 on the Calcutta School of Science, Bhabha is working as a professor. The institute’s founder Medhi Raza (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) is making an attempt to recruit him for good, however Bhabha is aware of he is destined for better issues. He additionally appears to have reservations about Raza’s funding coming from the Muslim League. By the point Sarabhai arrives in Bangalore, Bhabha has established a cosmic ray unit at IIS underneath Raman. He is not all comfortable about leaving Calcutta behind although, with IIS’ funding a far cry from Raza was capable of provide. Bhabha and Sarabhai’s relationships turns right into a mentor-mentee one, whereas the previous additionally develops a rivalry with Raza who feels he is been seemed over at each stage on account of Bhabha’s privileged origins and showmanship.

Although Raza is a personality created for Rocket Boys, he’s a model of the famend astrophysicist Meghnad Saha who, like Raza, got here from a poor decrease caste household, was a rival of Bhabha’s, and opposed Nehru favouring a privileged class. Raza is not the one fictional character on the SonyLIV sequence. Saba Azad performs Bhabha’s uncared for love curiosity Parvana “Pipsy” Irani, whom I think about the creators usual as a foil to showcase Bhabha’s obsession together with his work, and as a counterpart to Sarabhai’s love curiosity and acclaimed dancer-choreographer spouse Mrinalini Sarabhai (Regina Cassandra). By Pipsy and Mrinalini, Rocket Boys reveals its male leads’ deficiencies within the private division — and it is ready to attract parallels because of the creation of Pipsy.

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Regina Cassandra as Mrinalini Sarabhai in Rocket Boys
Photograph Credit score: SonyLIV

Rocket Boys’ leads may each be male and its world male-dominated, however the brand new SonyLIV sequence by no means loses sight of the actual fact that there have been girls on the sidelines who supported Bhabha and Sarabhai — however didn’t have their care and appreciation reciprocated. And it makes for some sensible humour too, upending conventional romantic overtures to point out how males could be egocentric.

The dynamic between Bhabha and Sarabhai is satisfying and comedic in locations — they banter and take one another’s instances — although Rocket Boys’ efforts at being humorous do not at all times pan out. In an early episode, it takes a smug tone towards the colonial British. I get the concept however it not solely feels anachronistic, however the shenanigans towards the British are distracting and do not actually serve a function. Apart from to fill some form of patriotism checkbox. It is pointless and a uncommon signal of Rocket Boys going overboard with its materials.

However by and huge, Rocket Boys stays regular because it lifts off into the stratosphere. By its two genius leads, the SonyLIV sequence paints the imaginative and prescient and outlook of a newly-independent nation, the place a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands envisioned and clamoured for a brighter and larger and equal future for all. Alongside the way in which, it touches upon issues of caste, gender, privilege, faith, and ideologies — topics which are nonetheless the bedrock of India at the moment.

For all of Bhabha’s exploits although, his guarantees have been left unfulfilled. In an early episode, as Bhabha delivers a passioned speech about power self-reliance — a dream that we have now but to understand — and a future the place atomic power will take over from coal in lighting up all of India, Rocket Boys appears like a product of science fiction. In any case, over 70 years later, the nation’s power wants are nonetheless largely fulfilled by coal. As late as final 12 months, new coal mines have been being auctioned. On high of that, India is the world’s second-largest importer of coal. At current, nuclear energy is chargeable for solely 3 % of India’s power. The determine for coal? Over 70. If Bhabha have been alive at the moment, I think about that will be mighty disheartening.

Rocket Boys feels prefer it’s nostalgic for a extra optimistic India — an India that had the world at its toes, an India rising from centuries of oppression, and an India the place pluralism was inspired. An India the place something was doable. In these darkish and miserable occasions the place all the pieces India as soon as stood for is being razed to the bottom, Rocket Boys is each essential and a response to the nation that we have change into.

All eight episodes of Rocket Boys launched Friday, February 4 at 12am IST on SonyLIV in India and around the globe.