Why is Madhavan in a FIX?

Even as Ranganathan Madhavan's directorial film Rocketry opens in theatres this week, he is in a fix.

Dr S Nambi Narayanan, the retired Indian Space Research Organisation scientist whose bio-pic the film is, has tested positive for COVID-19.

"Nambi sir and I were supposed to promote the film together, and we did go to several venues in India and abroad together. But now he has tested positive, and I'm like, hell, this is not the way it was meant to be," Madhavan tells Subhash K Jha.

Madhavan wanted the real Nambi Narayanan to take centrestage.

"That was the whole idea, but now I have to stand alone for the film. I feel really stressed," he adds.

The good news is that everyone who has seen Rocketry is praising it.

"By the grace of God, so far the film has only received bouquets. I want the story of Nambi Narayanan to be seen by the maximum number of people," the actor, who also plays the scientist in Rocketry, says.

Meanwhile, retired Indian Police Service officer R B Sreekumar was detained by the Gujarat police along with the well-known journalist and activist Teesta Setalvad, on Saturday, June 25, 2022.

The Gujarat police's First Information Report accuses Setalvad -- the grand-daughter of India's first attorney general M C Setalvad -- and former IPS officers Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt of forgery and criminal conspiracy to falsely implicate 'innocent' people in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor has called for Teesta's release from police custody even as political parties in India like the CPI-M have demanded Teesta and Sreekumar's release.

Then posted at the Intelligence Bureau, India's domestic intelligence agency, Sreekumar was one of the investigators accused of falsely charging Dr Nambi Narayanan of being a spy way back in 1994.

"We are only days ahead of the release of the film on Nambi sir. What a coincidence that those who caused his reputation such irreparable damage are finally getting their comeuppance at a time when his story is going up on the screen," Madhavan tells Subhash K Jha.

"What goes around comes around," the actor adds. "We only want to show there was a conspiracy to bring Nambi Narayanan down."