Rocketry: The Nambi Effect

Shah Rukh Khan,Phyllis Logan,Madhavan,Simran

1994, Kerala. Nambi lives with his wife Meena Narayanan (Simran), kids Geeta (Misha Ghoshal) & Shankar (Shyam Renganathan). The treason and espionage story is breaking all over the papers across the country. Overnight, the Narayanan family is a social outcast. Nambi is arrested, while Geeta and Shankar are molested and assaulted by their friends and colleagues. 19 yrs later in 2013, India's ISRO launches a successful mission to Mars in its first attempt. The credit is given to Nambi's rocket.During the present time in an interview with movie star Suriya (Tamil) through a television channel, Nambi (R. Madhavan) walks through the events leading to his rise as an eminent engineer to alleged espionage charges, physical and mental cruelty against him. Nambi starts with his experiences at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, where he saves A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Amaan), one of his team members from a major injury during an experiment. In 1969, he is accepted into Princeton University in the US. Kalam believes that India should go from solid to liquid to cryogenic rockets, but Nambi wants to adopt advanced technologies quicker than others and not follow a beaten path. Nambi wants India to have a share of the billion dollar satellite launch market.Nambi successfully completes his MSE program in chemical rocket propulsion under professor Luigi Crocco (Vincent Riotta) who recommends him for the NASA fellowship. This was after Nambi pointed out several mistakes in Crocco's class and proved him wrong by writing to the authors of the books that Crocco was teaching. Nambi befriends Yuri (Vladimir Vuckovic), a student from Russia. Crocco has a invalid wife at home, and is cutting down on his classes. Nambi makes a deal with Crocco to do all of his housework, in exchange for Crocco teaching fluid dynamics to Nambi at home. Nambi completes his PHD in 10 months. However, after a brief stint at NASA with Barry Amaldev (Sriram Parthasarathy), he is offered a generous paycheck and other allowances. He rejects it and returns to India so that he may make use of his talents at ISRO. He is asked to continue his research into liquid fueled engines and tour all such facilities across the world. in UK Nambi meets Val Cleaver (Ron Donachie), the CEO of Rolls Royce. He sees the Rolls fluids fuel testing facility in England. Cleaver is an imperialist and feels guilty about his role in splitting India into Pakistan and India.. Cleaver gifts 400 million pounds of equipment to Nambi to make amends in his own little way. However, after the suspicious death of Vikram Sarabhai (Ravi Raghavendra), he did not have adequate support from ISRO or funds from the Indian government to continue his research.At this point, Nambi strikes a deal with the French who need skilled scientists to help them build their own liquid fuel engine. He then moves to France with his colleagues, hoping to learn from France's advanced technology so that they may recreate it back in India. Unbeknownst to the French, Nambi and his 52 colleagues have learned French before their journey but pretend to not understand them. After being kept out of their major discussions, Nambi's team tries to find a way to gain access to these meetings and test data. It is then that they discover that that the French engine is faulty. Nambi uses this opportunity to gain access to the required data in exchange for fixing the engine. The team then returns to India and start working on building their own engine on liquid fuels. However, due to lack of resources (The govt gave only Rs 1 Crore to build one engine), it takes 8 more years to complete. They test the engine at the same testing facility in France (building the same testing facility in India would have costed Rs 100 Crores) - it goes above the 135 seconds mark, and goes all the way to 180. Successful in his plans, Nambi returns to India after naming the engine VIKAS after Vikram Sarabhai, his mentor. Vikas engine was path-breaking for ISRO and it never failed over the next 25 yrs of ISRO's journey. The engine was used on all of ISRO's critical missions.Nambi's focus is now on cryogenic engines which he believes will make India competent to participate in the world satellite market. Knowing ISRO's limitations in terms of time and resources, Nambi decides to purchase these engines from some other country. He strikes a deal with Russia (then USSR) after informing them that he knows about their cryogenic missiles (via Yuri), told to him by his Russian friend in Princeton. He requests 4 of them to be imported to India. The Russian quote is 1/4th of the French who are asking for $ 10 Bn for the same technology. After the Russians agree, the Americans find out about this deal and try their best to break it. While USSR is on the brink of collapse, Nambi and his colleagues manage to expedite the transfer process and sneak out a couple of engines from under the Americans' nose with the help of the Russians. The Americans come to know of Nambi's plans to smuggle the engines via Karachi and rush to intercept. Nambi only has time to leave with enough parts for 2 engines, instead of 4.Back in India, Nambi is arrested out of the blue while news of his treason spreads like wildfire. This is 30th Nov 1994. He is taken to a guest house in Trivandrum where he is beaten and tortured in an attempt to make him confess to his alleged crimes. He also recognizes that the officials are trying to make him repeat their sentences and that there is a recording device in the room to capture it. However, Nambi holds his ground and denies all charges. It was alleged that Nambi met Mariam (Anurita Jha), a Maldivian woman, in a hotel in Chennai and after being caught in her trap, he was forced to sell India's rocketry secrets to Pakistan. After being hospitalized due to his injuries, Nambi is met by CBI official P. M. Nair (Karthik Kumar), who thoroughly investigates the matter. Nair brings Mariam and her friend, along with a few others into the room. Mariam and her friend reveal that the Kerala police officer in charge of the investigation, Gopal, tortured and threatened them and made them falsely incriminate Nambi, whom they have never met before. They also apologize to Nambi for ruining his reputation and causing pain to him and his family. Nair also figures out that all the accused in this case were members of ISRO's cryogenic wing, and concludes that it was a huge ploy by some powerful parties to hinder India's progress in the cryogenic sector.Months later, Nambi receives bail and returns to his house to find his family members traumatized by the way they were treated by others. Nambi's wife Meena is in need of psychiatric help and the rest of his family are still shunned by the society. Hence, Nambi decides that he has to clear his name so that his family may lead normal lives in the future. In 1996, Nambi returns to ISRO and finds that the cryogenic project has collapsed as the consignments from Russia were never fully delivered as Nambi was the SPOC for the entire project. Nambi vows to make the Vikas & the cryogenic engines complete indigenous. Years later, Nambi is proven innocent by the Supreme Court and returns to ISRO, helping his colleagues with the Mangalyaan mission. Nambi is later awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contributions to Indian Space Research. He was given Rs 50 Lakhs as compensation by the Supreme Court and Rs 1.3 Crores as compensation by the Kerala Govt.