Dr Sarita Pawar

Proud Daughter of WW2 Veteran the Late Wing Commander Jagdish Bankapur IAF his ‘Girl with the Golden Voice’. Dr Sarita Pawar will share her father's experiences of the Second World War in the Indian Air Force.

Dr Sarita Pawar graduated as a doctor from Pune India and came to the UK in 1984 after marriage and has worked as a Doctor in the NHS since and as a General Practitioner ( GP) in Wales since 1999.

As a daughter of an Air Force Officer she enjoyed a privileged upbringing travelling with her father’s postings, and received education from some of the best Convents and Air Force Central Schools in India (thanks to the legacy of the British rule). Her father had a very liberated modern outlook and believed education to be the best Gift and legacy he could leave for his children. He believed in educating women and supported his two sisters after their marriages in the 1940s to become doctors. He also gave his three daughters a good education, an Architect, a Hotel management degree, and the youngest, a doctor. His only son, an Engineer lives in the US.

Dr Pawar for her dedication to the NHS was recognised for her services and was awarded ‘GP of the year by BAPIO (British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin) in 2018. She has also pursued her father's passion for music, and was awarded the EMWWAA in 2011 (Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Award) for self development for her dedication to Medicine and Music.

Dr Pawar remains actively involved in her career as a GP, and using her passion for Music, advocates 'Music therapy for Dementia and Wellbeing of the MIND - Living in musical Harmony‘.

"I owe my success to my father who nutured and taught me the importance of hard work and discipline."
Dr Sarita Pawar