Aditi Veena, a singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name Ditty, 35, lost her father about 12 years ago to interstitial lung disease. At the time, she didn’t fully understand it, but later, as she read more, she learned that environmental factors such as dust, chemicals, and air pollution can play a big role in causing it. 

Music became a way for her to cope with the loss, to build meaning around it. “I made peace with his absence by believing that he had become one with the earth — that I could find him in everything, and within myself. That idea gave me a powerful beginning in songwriting,” says the urban ecologist now based in Germany. Ditty has become known for her introspective, ecologically conscious music — a blend of poetry, acoustic textures, and ambient soundscapes which is reflected in her albums Poetry Ceylon and KĀLĪ .