Shes making her point

She calls herself Dot. She's anything but insignificant. Meet Aditi Saigal, viral at 18, actor by accident, musician for life, determined to try it all

- Karishma Kuenzang 

A dot is small but significant. Depending on where you place it, it can change the meaning of a sentence,” says musician Aditi Saigal, 25. It's only partly why she chose it for her stage name. When she was little, growing up in Delhi, she'd work on jumbo colouring books with her mother, theatre actor Shena Gamat. A perfectionist, even then, Aditi would get annoyed when her mother would colour outside the lines. "Mum told me, 'A dot never hurt anyone. But it makes the picture more beautiful"," Dot. recalls. So, at 18, when she went to Wales to study music and creative writing, and was ready to colour outside the lines of her own life, the switch from "Hi I'm Aditi", to "Hi. I'm Dot." came naturally.

Dot.'s big moment came early. In 2017, she was in Wales when her song, Everybody Dances to Techno, went viral. The acoustic jazzy solo about moving to music, and liking unpopular tunes, features just her on the keyboard singing her heart out, and has had more than half a million plays on YouTube. When she moved back to India in the waning months of the pandemic, ready to pursue a music career, she stumbled on to the opportunity of a lifetime. On a Zoom call with film director Zoya Akhtar, while they were discussing the lyrics to her song Asymmetrical for The Archies movie, Akhtar noticed that Dot. reminded her of Ethel Muggs, Riverdale's resident nerd. Akhtar asked if Dot. would like to audition. She did, and just like that, landed a role in the most talked-about Bollywood film of 2023.