In one moment, you are enjoying light banter with your loved ones, and in the very next, you are arrested and slapped with the label of a spy.

Nambi Narayanan, director of the cryogenic project at ISRO, went through hell, after he was arrested in 1994 for being allegedly embroiled with a Maldivian woman and selling secrets of ISRO to Pakistan. What followed was years of character assassination and trauma. That he was also ISRO’s celebrated maverick scientist who led a team to Vernon, France, for three years, only to return and invent the Vikas engine that paved the way for the era of PSLV rockets, was conveniently sidelined. “His story was like a James Bond movie,” says R Madhavan, of what inspired him to write, act in and direct Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, a film on the scientist that released on July 1. The actor, whom we meet over a video call, is dressed in a bright red hoodie and sporting an unshaven look—a stark difference from his near-perfect avatar in the film to resemble Nambi, whose character evolves from an ambitious and bright 27-year-old to a disillusioned 74-year-old.