The summer break is ending and school bells will soon ring again, but the playgrounds of Kashmir have not been quiet. Through the hottest weeks of the year, dusty fields and half-finished sports complexes have filled with running feet and raised voices. The heat kept nobody indoors. From Kupwara to Kulgam, from Anantnag to Budgam, children have been out there every evening, and the people standing beside them deserve a word of thanks.
They are volunteer coaches, Physical Education teachers, retired athletes and neighbours who simply care. They carry whistles and worn footballs instead of anything grander. In Kupwara and Budgam they walk small boys through passing drills until the light goes. In Anantnag and Kulgam they set up kho-kho and volleyball matches that draw crowds of parents to the boundary line. Their work sits alongside the Department of Youth Services and Sports programmes, including the Cluster Sports Clubs now running in several districts, where trained staff offer free coaching to schoolchildren and to youngsters who have left school.
Srinagar has added something new this summer. At Gindun Park, next to Jogger’s Park, a couple has been teaching skating to whoever turns up, and the sessions have become the main draw of the evening. Small children wobble across the surface, fall, get up and try again. What is striking is that the parents stay. They do not drop their children and leave. They stand at the edge and watch two people work at this hour after hour, with patience that does not run out. Between them the pair are shaping habits that will outlast the season, and they have earned every word of praise that comes their way.
The scale of the effort is real. More than 570 sports and youth infrastructure projects, worth over ₹650 crore, are in progress this financial year, among them 108 new playfields costing above ₹39 crore. The 2026-27 calendar plans over 426 activities across 50 disciplines, with participation expected to cross 21 lakh youth. In Poonch alone, more than 1,200 young people joined cricket and fitness drives under the Nasha Mukt Abhiyan, and similar drives have reached Anantnag and Budgam. Behind each figure is a young person who chose a playing field over something far worse.
Anyone who remembers the 1980s and 1990s will feel the weight of this. There were years when grounds emptied at the first rumour of trouble and parents counted the minutes until their children came home. Boys now chase a ball until dark without anyone glancing at the road. The volunteers who make that possible teach what no classroom can: how to keep going after a missed goal, how to lose without bitterness, how to win as a group. In doing so they push back against the drug problem more effectively than any lecture.
The difficulties are obvious. Most of these coaches work with almost nothing, buying kit from their own pockets and running sessions in punishing heat. New Khel Bhawans, synthetic turfs and academies in Anantnag and Kulgam are welcome, but the support has to travel the last mile. Training, equipment and simple recognition would go a long way. My Youth My Pride and the Khelo India Centres should be built around these people, not above them.
As the schools reopen, they merit our gratitude. They are rebuilding something in Kashmir one sprint and one tackle at a time. Peace is not only the absence of trouble. It is the sight of healthy, hopeful children on a field at sunset. Kashmir owes them.
