In what comes as a breath of fresh air, away from the cuss-words-ridden, stereotypical portrayal of Poorvanchal and its myriad gangster stories, streaming platform Sony Liv, appears to have hit it out of the ballpark with the trailer of ‘Rocket Boys’. The web series, based on the lives of Dr Homi Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai has caught the attention of the audience, garnering more than 10 million views in less than 24 hours on YouTube alone.
The trailer kicks off with Ishwak Singh as Dr Vikram Sarabhai trying a rocket ignition experiment in the courtyard of Cambridge University in London while Dr Homi Bhabha played by Jim Sarbh, teaches a class in his charismatic and endearing style.
Rocket Boys | Official Trailer | SonyLIV Originals | Web Series | 4th February
The trailer gives a good sneak peek into the working relations of the two extraordinary men who paired up to bring the true scientific revolution to the country. The trailer also touches upon the respective personal lives of the scientists, giving a brief eye into the romantic interests of the duo.
The trailer ends with a heartwarming cameo of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, India’s missile man and one of the most respected figures in the modern contemporary history of India.
The production value of ‘Rocket Boys’ looks simply top-notch and the background score creates just the right amount of tension while traversing through the minor blip in the relations of Dr Bhabha and Dr Sarabhai. The mannerism, clothes, and set pieces match the pre and post-independence era of the country.
Rocket Boys portrays Nehru’s anti-nuclear stance
The trailer also sheds light on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his refusal to kickstart India’s atomic dreams, despite Dr Homi Bhabha’s insistence to build one.
As reported by TFI, the Indian Nuclear Weapons program traces its history with the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948 with Dr Homi Bhabha as Founding Chair. It is perhaps, one of the reasons why Dr Bhabha is known as the Father of the Indian nuclear programme.
While Dr Homi Bhabha was a proponent of the acquisition of nuclear weapons, PM Nehru had an ambiguous stance on the issue. While Nehru had stated his favour towards research in nuclear physics, he had staunchly refused to entertain the possibility of India acquiring nuclear weapons.
The dichotomy of strategic interests vs internationalist, idealist foreign policy was nowhere starker than Nehru’s stance on nuclear weapons. When it came to choosing between securing India’s strategic interests through a well-developed nuclear arsenal and securing his legacy that of a ‘peacenik’ and ‘internationalist’, Nehru invariably chose the latter.
Read More: How Nehru ignored Homi Bhabha and delayed India’s nuclear bomb?
In 1965, Homi Bhabha had declared on All India Radio that he could make India a nuclear-armed country within 18 months if given the go-ahead.
This sent shivers down the spines of world powers. And incidentally, within a year, Homi Bhabha is suspected to have been killed by the United States’ CIA. Thus, it will be interesting to see how the series portrays the death of Homi Bhabha and his dissonance with Nehru.
The series drops in February
Created by Nikkhil Advani, Roy Kapur Films and Emmay Entertainment and produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani and Nikkhil Advani, the show is directed by Abhay Pannu.
The expectations after the trailer have shot through the roof and the audience is eagerly anticipating the series to drop on February 4.
Rocket Boys could be a gamechanger
While the West has made movies like ‘A Beautiful Mind’, ‘The Imitation game’, “The current war” and others — it is rare to find such movies or series in India, celebrating the brilliant work of our extraordinary scientists.
The series can be a game-changer for the Indian OTT market, which, lately had become stale and saturated with the tried and tested gangster genre.
This series seems quite exciting