The interesting story behind the making of ‘Rocket Boys’

‘Rocket Boys’, the web series on SonyLIV, won critical acclaim for the story plot and acting. The story is based on two of India’s greatest scientists – Dr Homi Jenagir Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai, with a big doffing of the hat at India’s Missile Man, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. ‘Rocket Boys’ also traces India’s formative years in science and the road to becoming a nuclear power.

While Season 1 of ‘Rocket Boys’ started streaming on February 4, 2022, Season 2 was released on March 16, 2023.

The two seasons of the Abhay Pannu-produced ‘Rocket Boys’, which he co-created with Nikhil Advani, stand out for their captivating treatment of historical events and brilliant use of visual language to keep the audience’s attention. ‘Rocket Boys 2’ maintains the caliber it displayed in the previous season and offers the ideal fusion of reality and fiction as the events get larger and the goal even more historic.

Day 2 of FICCI Frames 2023 witnessed an in-depth discussion on ‘Authentic Indian Stories: The Rocket Boys case-study’. The session was chaired by Swati Chopra, Journalist, Quint, and the panelists included:

Jim Sarbh, Actor (who essayed the role of Dr Homi J Bhabha)

Ishwak Singh, Actor (who essayed the role of Dr Vikram Sarabhai)

Nikhil Advani, Filmmaker

Abhay Pannu, TV Director

Saugata Mukherjee, Head Content, SonyLIV

Sidharth Roy Kapur, Head, Roy Kapur Films

Explaining the character of Dr Homi J Bhabha, Jim Sarbh said, “He was like a complete man, that’s what they would always say about him. It’s not that he was only interested in science and that’s where he disappeared, but his multi-disciplinary interests in addition to the fact that he loved life make him a very interesting character.”

Throwing some light on Dr Vikram Sarabhai’s personality, Ishwak Singh said, “You don’t have to be too dogmatic about it. There are facts, but then there are so many in-between gaps – it’s like a graph where you’ve got to connect the dots and navigate between the dots. At the end of the day, I think every story, irrespective of the backdrop, is a human story. The timeline showcases a certain period of time in a person’s life and you respect and enjoy it.”

Speaking about the journey of ‘Rocket Boys’, Saugata Mukherjee, Head - Content, SonyLIV, said, “When I moved from my previous company to Sony, it was the first natural call that I want to do the show and we took that chance. There are some stories that you need to back, besides we wanted to stand out from the plethora of stuff being thrown at the audience by different platforms. Hence, we came out with ‘Scam’, ‘Rocket Boys’, ‘Maharani’, etc. ‘Rocket Boys’ was tough because it was a large show with two seasons together, then a pandemic was thrown into the thing. I mean, how worse can it get? You do a big show and you have the worst thing that can happen to planet Earth in 100 years. However, despite all that, kudos to this team that everybody pulled out all stops to make a show of this mammoth scale without faltering one bit.”