When the scientists who’d developed India’s first liquid propulsion engine assembled for a reunion, it was time travel

Two Saturdays ago, while scientists at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram were busy packing a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) for a commercial launch at the end of the month, a 74-year-old man with a long silver mane and beard sat in the lobby of a nearby hotel, doing the countdown for another important event.

S Nambinarayanan, a former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist, was awaiting his team of 1974 that had put together India’s first liquid propulsion engine in Vernon, France, in collaboration with French scientists. Now retired and scattered across the globe, the septuagenarians had planned a get-together more than 40 years after they embarked on the five-year mission that resulted in the Vikas engine. The rocket the VSSC scientists were packing would be the 32nd PSLV to be powered by Vikas. And the names of these veterans, as usual, would find no mention when India celebrates another successful satellite launch.

But that Saturday evening, the class of ’74 had not assembled to crib. By 6pm, Nambi was joined in the lobby by R Natarajan who had worked on liquid propellant storage systems in Vernon, A Chandran, who succeeded Nambi as the team leader in 1978, and H R S Mani, who worked on quality control. As the lobby turned noisy, the old boys moved to the banquet hall. It was an all-male team of 53 that developed the engine in Vernon. Twelve of them were no more. Of the rest, 25 turned up, most with their wives.



(The Indian team with French scientists after the successful ground test of the Vikas engine in Vernon, France, in 1985.)

Soon, the women – most of them Malayalis – went into a huddle, recalling their adventures in France. Before the team left for Vernon, T N Seshan, then director of ISRO administration, had arranged a month-long tuition in French for the scientists, but not for their spouses. By the end of 1974, the scientists and their families had established themselves as a community in St Marcel, a neighbourhood where the great impressionist painter Claude Monet had lived earlier in the century.

“Remember how we challenged the men that we would learn French in a month?” Nambi’s wife Meena was overheard telling a long-lost friend. This confidence in the women stemmed from their interactions with vegetable vendors and grocers who had made a beeline to the St Marcel Indian community. “At the end of three months however, we only graduated from saying ‘merci’ to ‘merci beaucoup’. And it was the vendors who were speaking Malayalam,” she finished, as laughter turned to shrieks.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen.” It was Thomas Jayakumar, the master of ceremonies, calling the crowd’s attention. Someone joked that it was the ‘Vernon after-effect’ that made Jayakumar – who was in charge of control systems of the rocket engine at the time – believe he was still a ‘controller’. He wanted each scientist to take the mic and speak for two minutes – “just two minutes,” he reiterated – about the unforgettable days of developing the Vikas engine.

(This photo was clicked during a get-together of Indian space scientists in Thiruvananthapuram.)

As the veterans – M K Narendranath, S Rajarathinam, M K G Nair, K S Krishnamurthy – spoke about pride and prejudice evident during the development of Vikas, everyone nodded in confirmation. “Every time a PSLV lifts off, I get goose bumps,” said Kailasanathan. “Anybody remembers Nelson,” Chandran asked, of the French driver who drove the Indian scientists around on cold nights, and a score of hands went up.

Whenever the speeches got too serious, instrumentation specialist D Subramanian and IISc alumnus H R S Mani made catcalls a la backbenchers to bring the laughter back. But it all turned poignant when Sivakumari, the widow of scientist Manikantan fought back tears as she reminisced her happier days. “I don’t know how to thank you all,” she sobbed, “for remembering me even 20 years after my husband passed away.”

The group discussed other personal tragedies including scientist SC Ghosh’s wife delivering a stillborn, and another scientist’s daughter being born with a lung problem. After the speeches, scientists D Sarvesan, Manjunath Nayak, Jacob Devadas, P P Kailasanathan, M Parasu Pillai, C Rajappan, D Anandan, Murugesan and Krishnan Potti chatted with Unni Paramangalath, who acted as their office administrator, on how the team meticulously documented their daily experience at the French propulsion facility SEP and dispatched them to India under diplomatic cover. These were to prove invaluable reference material once the team returned to put together India’s first liquid propulsion engine.

As the evening progressed, when the core team members gathered around Nambi, their father figure, references to the infamous ‘ISRO spy case’ of the 1990s were unavoidable. Nambinarayanan was arrested on November 30, 1994 on charges of selling India’s ‘rocket secrets’ to Pakistan through two Maldivian women spies. The scientist was tortured in the custody of the Kerala police and the Intelligence Bureau for 50 days. In 1996, the CBI found the ‘spy case’ a figment of imagination, and found fault with the investigators. The Kerala government ordered a reinvestigation which the Supreme Court dismissed in April 1998.

Team Vernon is convinced it was an international conspiracy to halt India’s leap in space. “Nambi has come out clean, but India lost out on precious years, and ISRO a chairman it deserved,” observes P S Krishnamurthy.

Then, to avert a mournful mood, someone suggested a drink. However the hotel, as per the new Kerala government rules, wouldn’t serve liquor. “But if you have brought your drink, ice cubes are on the house,” announced Nambi. And out came nip bottles and hip flasks. They raised their glasses, and one of them announced: “Now, that’s what you call liquid propulsion!”