Ditty releases KALI — the striking title track from her acclaimed album of the same name. Filmed in Berlin with an all-South Asian creative team, the video is both personal and political: a meditation on colourism, belonging, and the contradictions of South Asian womanhood.
'This video holds up a mirror to what we’ve internalised — and what we can unlearn,' says Ditty
KALI confronts the long shadow of colonial beauty ideals in South Asia where 'fairness' is still wrongly equated with worth. The musician reclaims 'kali' (meaning 'black,' and often used as an insult) as an anthem of pride, linking it to the strength of the Goddess Kali and the resilience of darkness.
'It’s a celebration of South Asian skin, and the undoing of centuries of colonial conditioning.' Says Kavindu Sivarajha, Cinematographer and co-director.
South Asian culture holds countless intimate moments shared between women, from draping a saree to the quiet ritual of champi, which is oiling and braiding one’s hair, to playful traditions like fugadi–– an iteration of a trust fall. These moments celebrate connection and care. Yet society is also built in a way that makes women the first to judge, compare and diminish one another, eroding the beauty of that intimacy.The video explores care and criticism that are the dual realities of being a South Asian woman.
'Through them, we see both the tenderness and the tension that coexist in South Asian womanhood,' says Co-director, Akshita Garud (Two Odd). This project also reflects Ditty’s broader work building a creative community among the South Asian diaspora in Berlin, where she is actively fostering new spaces for collective expression and healing.
Photo by Menty Jamir
Fro the unknown, Ditty is an Indian independent artist and urban ecologist whose music is inspired by the natural world. She started by playing music on the streets to reclaim public spaces as a woman. Her first album, Poetry Ceylon released in June 2019 and was called the debut album of the year by India Today. In 2020, in the pre pandemic world, Ditty created India’s first carbon neutral tour – Make Forests Not War. In 2021, she co-founded the interdisciplinary artists' collective Faraway Friends, across Europe and India to address urgent topics around the ecological crisis. In collaboration with the German organisation Viva Con Agua, they released an album titled Rain Is Coming. Since 2022, Ditty is based in Berlin and New Delhi. She is one of the musicians to receive the Music Board scholarship in 2023. Early 2024, she released her latest EP skin, and is currently working on her record, titled Kali.
Words Platform Desk
Date 26-8-2025