Strictly star Dr Punam Krishan's heartbreaking admission on tough teenage years

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Dr Punam Krishan hails from Glasgow, where she still works as a GP. The doctor's Indian heritage led to complicated feelings as a younger teenager in the city

Dr Punam Krishan's Strictly Come Dancing journey has been a mixed bag so far, but her resilience is shining through on the danceflloor.

Following her incredible Bollywood-themed routine with Gorka Marquez which earned them 33 points, the pair scored only 20 last week for their Jive to 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) by Lizzo.

Strictly judges Motsi Mabuse and Shirley Ballas agreed there were "a lot of mistakes" in Punam's routine while Craig called it "sloppy", saying it wasn't the doctor's night.

But the star remains popular with Strictly fans, following that incredible Couple's Choice Bollywood number. The doctor, who regularly appears on BBC Radio Scotland, kicked off her career in the media when she started writing for GP publication Pulse. Born in Glasgow, she works as a GP in the city from Monday to Thursday morning before heading to Manchester to finish the week on the BBC's Morning Live.

Punam, 41, grew up in a tenement flat in the Scottish city with her parents, little sister and extended family. She went onto study medicine at Glasgow University and calls herself a "proud Scot".

But Punam's Indian heritage led to struggling with her true identity in her early teens. "Growing up as a first generation Scottish Indian was at times quite hard," she wrote in the Glasgow Times. "Especially as a child and in my early teens, that true sense of belonging and identity was absent."

"Though most of our customers were lovely and my mum and dad built up a beautiful relationship with our local community, they unfortunately also experienced a fair bit of racism and abuse over the years at the shop," the medic continued. "Watching that as a child was really upsetting. They never said anything back. They just served.

"I didn't see us as being different but then when I would look at the papers and magazines on the shelves, it would hit home - we were different. People like us weren't in the papers, we certainly weren't writing for them."

Punam's time on Strictly has seen her take a nostalgic look back at her childhood. Her Bollywood dance was to "Bole Chudiyan" from the hit film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and she wishes she could have seen a similar performance as a child.

"I never saw Indian girls dancing on mainstream television, so to be doing an Indian dance on a platform like Strictly is huge," said the doctor.

"I just went to four-year-old me, who would have loved to see something like this when I was growing up," she added, breaking down in tears to Strictly host Claudia Winkleman after her performance. "But you can't be something you can't see."