Coming after she had already established herself as an actress, Y.O.L.O was a pivotal point in Ginita Sunaina’s music career: her first single, the first time the world saw her full potential as a musician, her first big success in the world of music. The video for Y.O.L.O was a huge success; hundreds of thousands of people watched it across platforms and countries, drawn to the message of the song and the way in which it brought together Ginita’s Indian cultural heritage and her Western Music influences from growing up in the Netherlands.
But the video might never have been created, the song never have reached so many people, if it had been filmed – or written – a few weeks later.
The music video for Y.O.L.O was filmed just before the COVID-era lockdowns in 2020, and Zee Music showed faith in Ginita as a music artist by launching the single.
It was a dream come true for a girl from The Netherlands: going from a rehearsal mic to a global music platform overnight.
As everyone in the world stayed at home at the same time for the first time ever, Ginita realized that the pivotal lyrics of Y.O.L.O (“Zindagi Jeena Hai”, or “One must live life”) were relevant to everyone, were an inspiration call to action to 7.5 billion people sitting at home.
And the music video was a huge hit. As she sat with her team watching the views go up every time she refreshed the analytics page, as she replied to each comment, Ginita knew one thing:
Her music career was here to stay.
Acting will always be her first love, but she is now also an accomplished musician and director.
Y.O.L.O – You Only Live Once
Y.O.L.O is an anthem for all those who are frustrated with the rut their lives are in. Listening to it will make you want to get 100% out of every day, to enjoy life while you can, instead of living life like a dying mobile battery: at 4%.
One thing that immediately strikes the listener about Y.O.L.O is just how energetic it is. It’s fast without necessarily being at a very high tempo, it makes you want to stand out and dance and move. It wakes you up. More importantly, it wakes your soul up: the lyrics are simple and powerful, and carry the main message of the song, which is to live life to the fullest extent.
Specifically, a few phrases in the Hindi section will stick with you long after you listen to Y.O.L.O for the first time. “Pyaar ke nashe mein ghoomna hai”, “mujhe pukaaro na” and “maza lena seekhna hai” (which respectively mean “we must roam in the shared ecstasy of love”, “call out for me”, and “one must learn how to have fun”) are strident calls to action that double down on the core message of the track, and get you in the mood to turn your life around and have fun when you deserve it.
And the energy in the track is further transmuted and alchemized by the rap section in English. Y.O.L.O is a collaboration between Ginita, JDKiss, and JahDiamondRed, and the guest stars lay down bars that are as smooth as silk, balancing the energy in the track perfectly to pick back up when Ginita’s verses come to the forefront again. The song makes all its disparate parts work together in harmony, something that is a testament to the strength of its composition.
Y.O.L.O: Evolution over Time
Y.O.L.O came out of a fun little jam session in 2018. The song evolved into its final form over the next year and a half, but it was when Zee Music, one of the largest music companies in India, decided to release the single.
And the richly earned success for Y.O.L.O changed everything.
It was both terrifying and exhilarating. Until that moment, I was mostly known for acting, but YOLO was me revealing my heart as a musician. Knowing that people connected with it was deeply affirming.
It was after Y.O.L.O that Ginita became known as a singer and an actress, a musician and a director, and so much more.
Stepping from acting into music was scary: acting lets you hide behind a character, but music exposes who you really are. The love YOLO received, especially during lockdown, encouraged me to trust myself as a multi-disciplinary artist.
Ginita Sunaina: Direction and Acting || “Charity Day”
“Charity Day” is a short film created and directed by Ginita in 2024. It contains powerful messages and standout performances within its short run time. Watching it will give you new perspectives, make you think deeply about how best to help other people, about food wastage, about the nature of altruism itself.
You can watch “Charity Day” here.
Several things about the direction of “Charity Day” stand out. The first is the depiction of the night, almost like a secondary main character. For many of us who are more fortunate, the night is our favorite time of day: we can relax, spend time at home with our loved ones, recharge for the day ahead, possibly go out with friends. The night holds no terrors for some.
But for those who do not know where their next meal is coming from, for the millions and billions across the world who do not have a fixed or stable home, the night is dark and full of fear. The lighting, color grading, and framing of every shot in Charity Day shows this effectively; the dark feels claustrophobic, dangerous, alien. We see the night through the eyes of those who have reason to treat it warily. As with all films that are directed well, “Charity Day” helps us see things from different perspectives.
“Charity Day” is largely a silent film; except for the section where Ginita talks directly to God, all the storytelling is done through the looks on the faces of the characters and their body language.
The latter is a distinctive feature of the direction; the multiple child actors are able to create lasting impact even with only a few seconds on the screen because their postures and attitudes convey hope or disappointment or excitement as transparently as those of children off screen do. They are real, authentic; they make you forget that you’re watching a film.
It’s not always how much you give, but how much Love you put into giving.
And Ginita, who plays the lead role, is also fantastic. Her crushed walk back from the site of the rejection of her offering by the first child, and anguished facial expression as she sinks to the ground after this, are both inspired depictions of visceral disappointment. The folded hands that come together above her head like a swan at the film’s triumphant climax feel like something from a classical dance routine: conveying so much with so much grace in such a short period of time.
She conveys emotion well: the direction lingers on her face so that you can read joy and sorrow like a book. With 80% of the film being dialogue-free, we can focus on the emotions of its characters, interpreting their lives through the lens of our own experiences, as we are invested in the world depicted within “Charity Day” a few short minutes after being introduced to it.
“Charity Day” has been recognized across continents for its immersive storytelling and powerful message. At the ARFF events in Berlin and Amsterdam, the film was nominated in multiple categories, including the prestigious Globe Award in Berlin. It also won the Special Jury Award at the Kollywood International Film Festival.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about “Charity Day” is how you forget, after watching it, that it was just a few minutes long. It is unforgettable, making you think deeply about food wastage and how to truly help those who have nothing.
Earliest Memories || Growing as an Artist and Musician
As someone who has Indian roots but grew up in The Netherlands, Ginita grew up singing Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi songs around the house. She might not have understood every word, but even then she felt every ounce of emotion that those tracks have inspired in hundreds of millions of people.
My first live performance was “Tum Paas Aaye” in a hall in the Netherlands — little me shaking but shining.
In school, I once composed a melody for a poem and thought: “Hey… that sounds pretty good.” That’s where the songwriter in me was born.
Uski Hmm ki Aankh
Uski Hmm ki Aankh is a love story with a difference. A song that feels like a film. It is one of Ginita’s personal favorites within her oeuvre, and it will last forever.
Ginita’s vocal performance in this track is compelling, and reveals a different side of her range than her other songs. In keeping with the fresh, innocent nature of the first intense experience of falling in love, her voice has the same texture as that of dew on crisp green grass in the early morning. You can hear the hope and happiness in her performance on Uski Hmm ki Aankh.
This is complemented perfectly by the upbeat nature of the track as it picks up pace, with peppy verses delivering the energy with their optimistic synths and driving beats. And when the chorus comes back around, your emotional journey with the song settles back down to a contemplation of how beautiful and blessed it is to fall in love, to be in love.
The articulation of the long vowels in each word of Uski Hmm ki Aankh is special; it encapsulates the longing of lovers to see each other, and adds further weight to the sentiments expressed in the song. There are also interludes sung in English. As with much of Ginita’s work, they symbolize her ability to draw on her Indian heritage and from millennia of ancient culture and bring that to the rest of the world, building a bridge between East and West.
And the music video furthers this theme. The glimpses of windmills and the verdant greens of The Netherlands in the background of many shots pays tribute to Ginita’s life in Amsterdam, just like the dual-language lyrics and the fusion of both Bollywood and Western music in the instrumentation. As Ginita always says, her songs are not isolated works of art; all of her shines through in every aspect, from the music video to the costumes to the lyrics.
The lyrics of Uski Hmm ki Aankh are a work of art in themselves; this is a poem set to music and reimagined through Ginita’s creative mind. The lyrics were written by Gita Marhe, who was able to craft lines that told the story of timeless love. Because the intoxicating power of deep infatuation is the one thing that bridges generations: everyone remembers their true first love, and everyone smiles when they think of their innocent carefree selves the first time their universe was occupied by exactly one person.
Creative Process and Songwriting
Ginita usually follows three steps to create her works of audio art:
1. Inspiration: Every song, for Ginita, starts with a feeling. The feeling could be something as simple as a phrase that’s on her mind. It could be a mood that’s settled over her for days or weeks. It could be a melody that she creates in her head and that makes her go: that’s special.
2. Building a Musical Universe: The seeds of every song develops into its own flower, blossoms and reveals its secrets through multiple writing sessions where Ginita and her producer sit together to create audio magic.
3. Integrated Art: Once the song is ready, Ginita crafts every aspect of its final form. To her, each song is a complete expression of all aspects of her artistic personality. The visuals, the story she is telling, the cinematic quality of the direction, the way in which the music interacts with the video: they are all important to her, and she spends time on those details before the song is shared with the world.
Conficted
“Conficted” is Ginita’s most ambitious film project as of 2025; she directed and starred in this 23 minute short in 2024.
The short is a powerful psychological thriller that shows us what a gulf there can be between the people we pretend to be on the outside, and the people we truly are on the inside. All of us wear masks, and the story of “Conficted” is therefore completely universal.
It isn’t just for entertainment, either: the dynamic between Soni (Ginita’s character) and Surat showcases many dimensions of relationships, including those that are uncomfortable, that are not always talked about.
The main message is about the futility of suicide. The suicide rates among all sections of society are too high, and “Conficted” is Ginita’s way of sparking conversations about this irreversible step that so many take.
The title of “Conficted” is unique, and merges two words that are central to the plot: Convicted and Fiction. Every aspect of the film has Ginita’s imprint; it is one of the most personal works of art she has ever created. She worked on the key aspects of the concept, direction, performance, and post-production. Multiple shots – including one glorious view of the sky from the ground, seen through a patchwork of very tall trees – feel like paintings in how carefully they are framed; every second of the film is a labor of love.
Acting will always be my first love because it is rooted in empathy.
Music allows me to express and explore my feelings.
Directing lets me turn emotion into something people can visually connect with.
“Conficted” was as big a hit with critics worldwide as it was a triumphant passion project for Ginita. It picked up more than 25 IMDB-qualified awards at prestigious international cinema events including Around International Film Festival, Virgin Spring Cinefest, Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival, and Black Swan International Film Festival.
Ginita is Thankful
I am deeply grateful to my family – especially my Mom, Didi, Charelle, Luna, and Maa – for grounding me.
To my team who believe in my boldest ideas.
To collaborators and mentors who guide me.
And to God for leading me every step of the way.
As Ginita looks forward to new and exciting projects in 2026 and beyond, she is deeply grateful for everything she has achieved so far, and eager to see what the next phase of her career will bring. She is currently working on new music with a unique, global style, fusing Hindi, Dutch, and English, while continuing to work on acting projects. Her production house – Global Tara Entertainment – has a feature film and two webseries in active development.
Her mission remains the same as it has always been:
to connect the diaspora, to build that bridge between Amsterdam and Bollywood…
like Swiss-Bollywood, but bigger 😉
Links
Ginita Sunaina – Website (Global Tara Entertainment): https://www.globaltaraentertainment.com/.
Ginita Sunaina – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginitasunaina/.
Global Tata Entertainment – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globaltaraentertainment/.
Global Tara Entertainment – YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrbcQhPC24bQIKGroGoSGCQ.