Real Kashmir Football Club doesn’t resort to gimmicky storytelling to get our attention. It doesn’t need to. Co-directors Rajesh Mapuskar and Mahesh Mathai, and writers Dhruv Narang, Danish Renzu, Umang Vyas, and Simaab Hashmi take us beyond the Kashmir of militancy and terror attacks to show us that there is a genuinely beating heart in Kashmir. We just have to seek and find it.
The same goes for the series now streaming on SonyLIV. The series has a total of eight episodes. It is at once authentic and fictional. The essential plot about two brave Kashmiris, Shirish Kemmu (Manav Kaul) and Sohail Mir (Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub), taking on the task of building a football club sheltered from politics, is never diluted. We are informed that Kemmu and Mir are based on real-life characters who wanted to establish a genuine football club in Kashmir.
---Advertisement---
Having got the fact-funds out of the way, the series leans into the struggles of the two men to achieve what they had set out to achieve. That Shirish and Sohail are played by two of our finest contemporary actors is a stroke of luck for the story. I can’t imagine any actors other than Kaul and Ayyub playing the minds behind the idea of harnessing Kashmir’s youth power on the playing field.
---Advertisement---
Mu’zzam Bhat, who plays the coach, is also an asset to this subdued yet sharp take on the Valley beyond the violence.
That the co-directors have shot the series on location is a blessing. Dhurandhar could get away with recreating Karachi in Punjab. I doubt this series could work on make-believe. For once, the presence of troops and insurgency is not an intrusion. We feel the heat, but the series never allows the fire to singe its soul. Throughout, a sense of foreboding is tactfully underscored by a gamely aura.
Ironically, we don’t see the boys much on the field. Prudently, the series weaves gently through the lives of the football players: Dilshad whose sister’s wedding is jeopardized unless she agrees not to work after marriage, Rudra who can’t go for football matches as his father thinks the game is a threat to his son’s future, Amaan(Abhishant Rana) who has the most layered role among the football players as a young man battling his loyalty to ‘kashmiriyat’ and football, Nighat Qureshi (Nikhar Khullar), an intrepid journalist who has a hard time knowing the true players from the charlatans…
The women get to have a voice in this sweaty, masculine environment. The arrival of the Scottish football coach Douglas Gordon (Mark Bennington) brings a graceful curve in the narration. The “dryness” that pervades the storytelling is not by accident. Real Kashmir Football Club wants to adhere to the real facts, avoid any overt dramatic embellishments and give us characters who are heroic without straining for effect.
On all these fronts, Real Kashmir Football Club scores significant goals.
Rating: 3.5/ 5