The first season of SonyLIV’s Rocket Boys (2022) followed Indian physicists Homi Bhabha (Jim Sarbh) and Vikram Sarabhai’s (Ishwak Singh) and their contribution to Indian space program. The last episode of the first season ended thrillingly with an assassination plot against Bhabha.
But the first announcement video of Rocket Boys (Season 2) focuses on India’s first nuclear bomb test at Pokhran, Rajasthan in May 1974. The operation is also known as Pokhran-I or Smiling Buddha.
The video shows some impressive and realistic visuals of Pokhran where the test is to take place. A small glimpse of the explosion is shown as a voiceover says, “India will not be threatened. Not anymore. We are prepared to take any action necessary.” The video also says, “After this day, no one dared to challenge the sovereignty of India.”
The announcement video has fleeting visuals of Sarbh, Singh, Arjun Radhakrishnan, who plays Abdul Kalam, and Charu Shankar, who plays India’s late former prime minister Indira Gandhi. It seems Sarbh’s visuals are from an earlier portion since Bhabha died in 1966 in a plane crash.
Pokhran-II took place in 1998 with the testing of five nuclear bombs. The event was depicted in Abhishek Sharma’s Hindi film Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran (2018) starring John Abraham.