The Game Comes Back

The SonyLIV series traces how a football club becomes a bridge across memory, identity, and fear.

- 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.