Nambi Narayanan expresses happiness over national award to 'Rocketry...'

Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan on Thursday expressed happiness after the movie, 'Rocketry: The Nambi Effect', which was based on his life story, won the Best Feature Film at the 69th National Film Awards.

The 2021 National Awards were announced by filmmaker Ketan Mehta who headed the 11-member jury.

"I am very happy now," Narayanan told the media. With the national recognition, the movie will now get more publicity and more people will watch it, the scientist added.

After a 24-year legal battle, Narayanan had in 2018 managed to get his name cleared in the controversial espionage case.

The espionage case, which hit the headlines in 1994, pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.

Narayanan had to spend close to two months in jail before the CBI concluded the allegations against him were false. The case was first investigated by the state police and later handed over to the central agency, which found the allegations to be false.

"After winning the (court) case, I wanted to tell my story to the younger generation. I approached many of friends in the film industry, but nobody came forward to make this movie. They must have thought that it might not be profitable or maybe they were afraid of many things like there could be a stay on the case or there could be court proceedings," Narayanan told PTI TV.

He said actor R Madhavan later came forward and made a movie on it.

"It took about a year for him to come out of his commitments. We spent about one year discussing the movie," Narayanan added.

Meanwhile, in his Instagram stories, actor-director Madhavan dedicated the award for 'Rocketry...' to his parents and Narayanan.