The much-awaited biopic on former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan titled Rocketry-The Nambi Effect, is due to hit the screens on July 1, 2022. Actor R Madhavan took to his Twitter handle on Wednesday, May 25, to share the first motion poster of the upcoming movie.
R Madhavan has made his directorial debut with the movie and will be seen playing the titular role in the film, which is based on the life of Nambi Narayanan, the former scientist and aerospace engineer of the Indian Space Research Organisation, who was hounded and persecuted by the Congress government.
#rocketrythefilm Motion Poster 1 pic.twitter.com/8f9p0WqiQk
— Ranganathan Madhavan (@ActorMadhavan) May 25, 2022
In the first of its kind, one-minute motion poster, actor R Madhavan gradually appears adorning the look of the veteran scientist against the backdrop of space. “Sometimes a man wronged…is a nation wronged,” reads the tagline on the poster of the movie titled Rocketry: The Nambi Effect.
The movie, which is directed jointly by Anant Mahadevan and R Madhavan and marks the latter’s debut as a director, was screened at the prestigious Cannes Films Festival in France on May 19. After its world premiere at Cannes, the film will be released in India on July 1, 2022.
The film’s official announcement occurred about a year ago, and it’s been said that Madhavan has been undergoing extensive training to get into the character’s skin. The actor will portray the scientist at various stages of his life, ranging from 27 to 75 years old.
The trailer of the movie which was released in April 2021, captured the real-life story of former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, his professional success and events that led to his imprisonment and police cases against him by the then governments. Many scenes in the trailer are hard-hitting and reminiscent of the forgotten pain of one of India’s most decorated and criticised scientists.
How Congress hounded India’s most celebrated rocket scientist Nambi Narayanan
It is pertinent to note that scientist Nambi Narayan was a victim of persecution by the Congress party. The political rivalry between the two factions of the Kerala Congress party led to the arrest of Narayanan, along with two other scientists D Sasikumaran and K Chandrasekhar in November 1994. The Kerala police had levelled charges of espionage under sections 3,4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act against the scientists.
Apart from these three scientists, SK Sharma, an Indian representative of the Russian Space Agency, a labour contractor and a person named Fauzia Hassan were also arrested. Narayanan was then heading the cryogenics division at the ISRO. All of them were accused of giving secret information about ISRO’s rocket engine to Pakistan.
Narayanan’s arrest and subsequent prosecution are said to have set the Indian Space Research program decades behind. A Supreme Court ordered a probe in 2018 had found that the charges against the scientist were fabricated and he was wrongfully targeted by some people in power with vested interests. In 2019, the Union government led by Narendra Modi finally awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan to Nambi Narayanan on the occasion of 70th Republic Day 2019.
