Our Verdict On Rocket Boys 2, Rana Naidu + Simran Tells All

Rana Naidu: Foul-Mouthed Men Do Questionable Things

Netflix's remake of Ray Donovan, starring Venkatesh and Rana Daggubati, is a wasted opportunity that prioritises shock over storytelling. Manik Sharma writes.

IN NETFLIX’s Rana Naidu, there is a scene in which our protagonist moves to open a car door for his wife. “Because I fucked up earlier,” he explains to his wife who melts at the gallant gesture. “Maybe you should fuck up more,” she retorts. It’s hard to read this moment without a hint of irony, but then it’s also painted as sentimental quackery trying to bring two distanced people together. The fact that merely opening the door for a woman is considered an act of redemption indicates the smug, ignorant world this show is set in. Created by Karan Anshuman and Suparn Verma, the series is an adaptation of the popular Ray Donovan.

Rana Naidu, played by the self-serious Rana Daggubati, is a middle-man who handles pesky, off-the-book cases for Mumbai’s elite. Naidu has a difficult relationship with his wife, an ever-committed Surveen Chawla in a role that feels like an echo of her bold career choices of the past. The show’s stakes are internalised to an extent after Naidu’s father, Naga Naidu, played by Venkatesh, finishes a prison term and returns to the fold. The rest of the 10-episode series is a battle of egos, an unravelling of the mystery behind Naga’s incarceration and Rana’s reckoning with the moral choices of his job.

You know what a show is going for when its first sequence has a woman orally pleasuring a man as a way to obtain his semen. It’s a fairly shocking prologue that sets the tone and then — unfortunately — doubles down on living up to it with as much conviction as the people in the series have a shot at being reflective. Almost everyone is some shade of evil, and while that might be a worthwhile segue into a world of crime, drugs and more, there is actually little thinking behind the specificity of it all.

How Rocket Boys Season 2 Grounds Its Geniuses

The second season of Rocket Boys builds on the promise of the first, by zooming out just enough to bring the wider context of the world into view.

THERE IS A SCENE in the second season of Sony LIV’s Rocket Boys, where Vikram Sarabhai’s mother reacts to the news of her son and daughter-in-law moving out of their ancestral house. “Acha hai, isse Vikram ko daal aur aate ka bhav toh pta chalega,” she says to Mrinalini, Sarabhai’s wife. It’s a sequence that perfectly illustrates why Rocket Boys is pitch-perfect telly. Enmeshed with global political intrigue, a nation on the cusp of social and scientific epiphanies, Rocket Boys has remained committed to the fact that no genius can live without being somewhat upstaged by the intimate and the personal. It’s a creative distinction that the show has successfully made from what could so easily have become a jingoistic celebration of a self-serving version of history. On the contrary, in its second season, Rocket Boys continues to be seductively tranquil and composed despite engaging with high-wire acts like espionage, war and the political firmament India had to learn to contest.

— MANIK SHARMA

BONUS CONTENT: QnA WITH SIMRAN

Simran On Gulmohar, Career Highs, & What She Looks For In Work

By Subha J Rao

GULMOHAR (dir. Rahul V Chittella) on Disney+ Hotstar has landed like a calm breeze to offset the sharp sun of early summer. If Sharmila Tagore’s Kusum epitomises grace, Indu, the other important lady in the Batra household, is played by the effervescent Simran, who seems to have finally got the pan-India recognition that ought to have come her way a long time ago. In an interview, Simran speaks of her joy from the feedback coming her way, how she’s crafted her career, her thoughts on being “recognised” in the North now, and loving her fans from the South.

Everyone loves Indu. But how did Simran react to Indu?

With any character, it has to enter my heart first before I commit. Indu went right into my heart three years ago when I sat down for a narration with Rahul. He wanted Indu to be someone who is brisk and in control of things. When he finished the narration, I realised there was so much more to Indu. The story was so meaningful, and I saw what a vital part Indu played in the family. Indu has to set right a home that’s split right down the middle.

How did you prepare to play the part?

Through my regular process of trying to be a character. Indu is someone who gives strength to every person in her life. She has an experience of a lifetime behind her. By now, so do I. I’m 47 and have been through life to an extent. I relate better to some instances now. I thought of the many women who are at home supporting their family. We don’t call them working women, but how much they handle! We have hardly portrayed the strength of a homemaker on screen... Indu is one such woman. I think age and my life’s journey have given me the gravitas to understand someone like Indu and play her better.

From a young age, you’ve played roles that called for a certain maturity. In that sense, how different was Indu?

I guess when you play certain roles in your real life, they spill over to the performance space too. There are some roles you research for. There are some roles that are a reflection of your own life. I am very fortunate that I got this opportunity. I’ve been very choosy about my work — it has to fit in with my personal life and schedule. Even when I was at my peak, I was lucky to work with directors who wrote their women characters well. I’ve worked with solid filmmakers who made me work hard to fit into their vision of a character.

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