On a January morning in 2018, minutes before a Republic Day flypast rehearsal, Squadron Leader Varlin Panwar sat before a radar screen at a frontline Indian Air Force base and watched an unidentified aircraft drift towards the border.
There was no time to deliberate. As a fighter controller, her job was to read the sky and act on it, so she ordered an interception, and the aircraft turned away before it could become a threat.
Years later, Panwar no longer scans radar screens for the IAF. Instead, she coaches some of Bollywood’s biggest stars on how to stand, salute and speak like the soldiers she once served alongside, a second career that has quietly made her one of Indian cinema’s most sought-after military consultants.
Ten years guarding Indian skies
Panwar’s path to that radar screen began long before she wore a uniform. Her father served in the Army, and every Sunday the two would go running together while he told her stories from the field, small rituals that planted an idea she carried into adulthood. At 12, watching a passing-out parade in Dehradun, she decided she wanted to serve too.
After school, she joined the 11th Girls Battalion of the National Cadet Corps, training through monsoon marches and camp drills until she was named Best Cadet at the national level, a rare distinction that marked her out early.
After a decade in the IAF, Squadron Leader Varlin Panwar now trains actors to get military etiquette right on screen. Photograph: (AI-generated image)
She went on to be commissioned into the Indian Air Force as a fighter controller, one of the specialists who guide pilots from the ground during operations, and served with distinction for 10 years before rising to Squadron Leader and retiring in 2018.
Panwar’s years in uniform coincided with a period in which the IAF steadily widened its combat roles for women, culminating in the commissioning of India’s first women fighter pilots in 2016. Fighter control demanded the same split-second judgement, the kind that guided Panwar on that January morning above the parade route.
From radar screens to film sets
Retirement in 2018 did not mean stepping back. Panwar first moved into technical security for the Indian Premier League, applying the same vigilance to stadiums that she once brought to airspace, work that demanded reading crowds and threats the way she once read a radar screen.
Then came an unexpected second calling: teaching actors to convincingly play soldiers, a field that had little precedent in Indian cinema and none, at the time, that involved a woman who had actually worn the uniform.
She has since consulted on Siddharth Anand’s Fighter, guiding Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone through the bearing of the IAF officers they portrayed, as well as on Operation Valentine and Sky Force, where she coached Akshay Kumar and debutant Veer Pahariya through drills, salutes and the quiet discipline that no costume department can fake.
From Fighter to Sky Force, Panwar has helped actors master the drills, discipline and bearing of IAF personnel. Photograph: (India.com)
Her job is not to teach actors to fly; it is to make sure every gesture on screen would pass muster with the men and women who actually serve, from the angle of a salute to the way a uniform is worn under stress, standards that take years of active duty to internalise and only a trained eye can properly judge.
Directors now call her in during pre-production, well before cameras roll, so that actors spend weeks absorbing posture and protocol rather than picking it up on set in a single afternoon.
Today, Panwar is recognised in the industry as the only female Military Etiquette Coach working in Indian cinema, advising on details as small as how a salute is held or how a formation moves across a frame.
Her story has resonated widely with young women weighing careers in defence and with veterans who say they finally feel accurately represented on screen. Of her decision to keep going after the Air Force, Panwar has said, “I felt like I had more to give.”
For her, the move from cockpit to film set was never a retreat from service, only a change of terrain, one more mission in a career built on paying close attention to the details other people miss.
It is a quieter vigilance than scanning a radar screen before a flypast, but Panwar treats it just as seriously, aware that for viewers who will never step onto a base, a film set may be the closest they get to understanding what it takes to wear the uniform.
Sources
-
‘Meet former IAF squadron leader, daughter of Army officer, who retired in 2018, is now working with top Bollywood stars for…, her name is..’: by DNA Web Team for DNA India, Published on 24 May 2025
-
‘Meet Squadron Leader Varlin Panwar: The Trailblazer Who Took Wings Beyond the Skies‘: by SSBCrack, Published on 27 May 2025
-
”Sky Force’ BTS: Varlin Panwar reveals Akshay Kumar & Veer Pahariya’s intense prep!‘: by The Statesman, Published on 28 March 2025
