Kashmir’s Underdog Story Comes Alive on Screen – Kashmir Observer

By Fiza Masoodi

The first image in Real Kashmir Football Club lands with a familiar jolt.

A young man cycles toward a protest outside a wine shop. Slogans fill the air. The tension builds. He throws a grenade and panic breaks out.

Then the truth comes out.

It’s fake.

People laugh, shake it off, and carry on.

In that quick shift, the series shows what it wants to say.

Kashmir lives with uncertainty, but it also lives with routine, humour, and people simply getting on with their day.

This SonyLIV series takes a different route from most stories set in the region. It steps away from postcard beauty and headline violence and settles into everyday spaces.

The show is inspired by the real-life founding of Real Kashmir Football Club by hotelier Sandeep Chattoo and journalist Shamim Meraj in 2016.

The real club started as a community initiative after the 2014 floods and eventually became the first professional football club from Jammu and Kashmir to play in the I-League.

The series shows how a football team became a reason for young people to gather, believe, and stay connected to the world around them.

At the center is Sohail Mir, played by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub with tired honesty. Sohail is a journalist who no longer trusts his work to make a difference. Stories feel recycled, impact feels distant. Football reminds him of a time when public life in Kashmir felt open and shared.

Long before turmoil pushed games off the streets, football was something ordinary people watched and played after work. Sohail wants to bring that feeling back as a way to give young people purpose.

That idea leads him to Shirish Kemmu, a Kashmiri Pandit businessman played by Manav Kaul.

Shirish runs a liquor business and has lived with the memory of displacement and return. He is cautious, guarded, and unsure whether reopening old doors will invite new wounds. Kaul plays him with restraint, letting silences do much of the work.

When he finally agrees to support the club, the partnership feels practical rather than symbolic, built on shared uncertainty instead of grand ideals.

The team’s first trials are among the show’s strongest moments. A rundown Srinagar ground, a registration table waiting, bibs lying unused as daylight fades. No one knows if anyone will show up. But slowly, boys arrive on foot and on bikes. Faces carry hope and doubt in equal measure.

When darkness sets in, scooter headlights become floodlights. The scene resists celebration. It stays with nerves, awkward smiles, and the sense that something small might be starting.

Around Sohail and Shirish, the series builds a group shaped by personal pressures. Dilshad balances work and football. Rudra struggles with parents who worry more about status than joy. Amaan drifts between radical influence and the need for steady work and self-respect. Mustafa, the local coach played by Muazzam Bhat, carries authority and exhaustion in the same breath. His humour feels earned, shaped by years of watching talent slip away.

As the club grows, new tensions enter.

A gifted striker arrives with ego and expectation. A Scottish coach, Douglas, becomes an outside observer trying to understand the valley. Through him, the show reveals both the heavy presence of security forces and the warmth of ordinary encounters.

When the team is asked to play a match inside a cantonment area, the players’ discomfort says more than dialogue ever could about long histories of fear and control.

The writing benefits from deep listening. Screenwriter Simaab Hashmi spent years traveling to Kashmir, speaking with traders, footballers, and families. That work shows in small details: jokes shared over kahwa, arguments in tight living rooms, and parents torn between fear and pride.

Kashmir here is not reduced to scenery. It feels lived-in, shaped by habit as much as by loss.

One of the show’s strengths lies in how it treats women. They are present as professionals and decision-makers, rather than background figures.

Sohail’s wife Ghazal runs her own boutique. Sameena teaches at a school and chooses to walk away from a marriage that would cost her independence. Shirish’s wife Kaveri is a psychologist who runs a collective where women work, talk, and heal together.

These characters anchor families and communities while holding on to their own ambitions.

The direction stays restrained. The camera avoids flashy slow motion and heroic framing. Training montages appear late. Matches rarely turn into spectacle. The focus remains on getting to the ground, convincing parents, managing paperwork, and holding a team together.

That choice gives the series credibility, though it also limits its emotional payoff.

Conflicts sometimes resolve too neatly. Bureaucratic hurdles fall faster than they would in real life. The final match does not deliver the surge most sports dramas promise.

What carries the show through are the performances. Ayyub brings moral impact without turning Sohail into a speech. Kaul avoids the trap of playing a savior and instead gives Shirish silent depth. Muazzam Bhat’s Mustafa feels etched by place and time, blending humour with weariness.

Among the younger cast, Abhishant Rana stands out as Amaan, capturing the pull of competing loyalties with ease.

Real Kashmir Football Club works best when watched slowly. It invites you back without tricks or suspense. The pleasure comes from spending time in its world. Football becomes less about winning and more about choosing a different way to move forward.

In a place often flattened into symbols, the series finds value in showing people trying, adjusting, and showing up again.

That steady approach is its real achievement.