Rocket Boys 2 , It’s not Just Rocket Science

Rocket Boys 2 , It’s not Just Rocket Science

Rocket Boys 2(SonyLiv, 10 Episodes)

Rating: **

That old  Majrooh Sultanpuri lyrics came to mind with a  minor alteration while watching Bhabha  and Sarabhai build  India’s first nucleur  bomb—Abb kya ‘missile’ doon main tumhare shabaab ka.

Shabaab(beauty) lies  in the eyes of beholder.There are is plenty  of external  beauty in Rocket Boys 2. There are goodlooking graceful actors and actresses and props  that are germane  to the era  (1960s) that writer-director  Abhay Pannu meticulously  recreates.

But I am afraid it’s  all way to  stretched -out. After watching 10 episodes  of Rocket Boys  less than  a year ago, ten more episode seem like  10, or maybe 8, too many.

The  saga  of Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Bhabha seems never-ending. And  history never seemed such a  slog. There are many charming moments dotting the  stretched-out landscape.I especially liked the closing moment where we see Bhabha and Sarabhai bromancing on the beach and Bhabha quips, “I’m so clever, Vikram, that  half of the time I  don’t understand what  I’m saying.”

Luckily,pseudo-profundity is not this series’ primary crime. Glibness is. The   episodes do not seem to have any proper structure.They just seem to run on research material and some imagination. Which is  just not enough.Where is the rationale  behind all the props?  Why for instance  is  Bhabha seen dancing around his office with   Vishwesh Mathur(played by  K C Shankar, who has more footage than other pivotal characters) when Mathur  is  clearly  plotting to upturn  Bhabha’s nucleur programme.

I  was especially  interested in Episode  3 where Pandit Nehru(Rajit Kapoor who made a  better Gandhi  in Benegal’s film than the Nehru in this series) passes away leaving the  coast not so  clear for his daughter’s ascension  to the throne. Mrs Indira Gandhi(played by  Charu Shankar who thinks dyeing   on that legendary  shrub of white  hair makes her Mrs G) is portrayed  as  apower-hungry malleable  woman who is  roundly ticked off by her personal adviser.

I don’t see Rahul Gandhi binge-watching this series with his friends.

Incidentally Sarabhai calls Bhabha a “grave robber”  after  Pandit Nehru’s death, for trying to manipulate  the grieving Indira to support  Bhabha’s nucleur  plans.

Everyone has an agenda in Rocket Boys 2, although  one is never  sure what  it is.Besides an emotional constipation wherein the characters  bottle  up their real  feelings for the  sake of what they feel to be  a larger  good,Rocket Boys 2 suffers  from  discernible budgetry constraints. Crowd scenes , the missile launches and  any scene that  requires more than three characters on the  screen looks tacky.

Every incident is  stretched  out to the optimum  to fill up the  episodes.  When Mrinalini Sarabhai(Regina Cassandra) dances we have  to watch the entire recital. Just because  there is  space  for it! Economy of expression  seems to have gone into a coma  with the  boxoffice prospects  of feature films.