Avadhoot Gupte on Marathi dandiya: 'The biggest challenge is to make people dance to your numbers'

Avadhoot Gupte on Marathi dandiya: 'The biggest challenge is to make people dance to your numbers'

Avadhoot Gupte shares his experience of performing at the first ever Marathi dandiya

Manasi Y MastakarUpdated: Saturday, October 08, 2022, 05:53 PM IST
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Avadhoot Gupte wears many hats – he’s a singer, director, producer, writer, and composer. The voice behind several popular Marathi songs, Avadhoot became an overnight sensation after winning the music reality show, Sa Re Ga Ma, in 1996. From fun numbers like Meri Madhubala to serious ones like Din Pareshan and patriotic songs like Jai Jai Maharashtra, Avadhoot is someone who can perform and compose songs of all genres of music with ease.

The versatile singer recently performed at the first Marathi dandiya held in Mumbai. Talking about his experience of performing at the Marathi Dandiya held in Mumbai, Avadhoot shared, “It was wonderful, awesome, amazing, exciting, and a memorable experience. I have been performing in concerts all over the world for almost 15 years and performing on stage is my first passion. But garba is different as the journey is in the reverse direction. In a regular concert, you perform songs, and people listen and dance to your numbers. The primary reason people come to a garba event is to dance. Therefore... you have to make people dance. You have to play your rhythm according to their steps and play your melody according to the rhythm and then sing according to the melody. It’s a reverse journey... but I enjoyed it.

Akshay Kumar with Avadhoot

Akshay Kumar with Avadhoot |

Think dandiya and garba and a playlist of carefully curated Gujarati or Hindi songs come to your mind. However, the song selection for Marathi dandiya is a different ball game. The criterion changes. “We took a lot of Marathi numbers against Hindi and Gujarati. Though we did have a few of the latter. There were my popular Marathi numbers like Aika Dajiba, Meri Madhubala, Raja Ala Raja from the recent hit Pawankhind, Un Un from Mulshi Pattern, among others. Every day, we ended the night on a patriotic note where I used to sing my evergreen song, Jai Jai Maharashtra,” Avadhoot said.

The singer started practising for the event 10 days prior, which also entailed doing a lot of homework and prep. “I did a lot of homework. We had to select the songs and make a daily log of the flow of the songs. We were performing from evening till midnight. Nothing less than 100 songs,” Avadhoot said.

Salman Khan with Avadhoot

Salman Khan with Avadhoot |

“There are seven to eight different patterns of rhythms and taals so we had to segregate those songs accordingly. Then we had to prepare them, rehearse them, assign them to different singers, and sing my own songs. So it was a lot of homework and hardwork,” Avadhoot explained.

Avadhoot was joined on stage by fellow singers like his sister Mugdha Karade, Prasenjit Kosambi, Hetvi Sethia, Ajit Parab. There were also celebrity guest singers like Vaishali Samant, Swapnil Bandodkar, and folk singer Nandesh Umap. “The icing on the cake was the celebrities who paid a visit each day throughout the season. There were Bollywood stars like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Sidharth Malhotra, Ananya Pandey, Jacqueline Fernandez, and Marathi stars like Saie Tamhankar and Subodh Bhave who attended the dandiya,” he added.

Ask him about the challenges he faced during the performance, pat came the reply, “There were no challenges as such. But every song is a challenge for any singer to perform on stage. The biggest challenge is to make people dance to your numbers. There should not be an empty patch while changing singers and songs. Every second, every moment has to be filled with music.”

Ranveer Singh

Ranveer Singh |

Over the years, there has been a rise in dandiya and garba events. Recalling the garba and dandiya or his college days, Avadhoot said, “I can see a lot of difference between then and now... that generation and the new one. Those days, there used to be limited venues for youngsters to have fun. There were discotheques and clubs, but limited. Today, the mediums of entertainment have increased. You can get entertainment even on your phone. I think the value of entertainment has gone down and it's the same with garba or any other event. However, surprisingly, youngsters still attend such events, all dressed in traditional outfits. They want to differentiate between going to a club or discotheque and garba or dandiya. They like to enjoy traditional Gujarati or Marathi music, and folk music and dance to it. This is a definite positive side to it.”

Jacqueline Fernandez

Jacqueline Fernandez |

On the work front, Avadhoot’s diary is full. “As a producer, I just completed telecast of season five of my Marathi music reality show, Sur Nava Dhyas Nava. Besides that, I also produce and present a franchise called Boyz... last month we released Boyz 3. As a composer, I am composing for a movie called Tararani. Also, will be coming up with a few singles post-Diwali. I have already composed them. I will be recording and shooting them soon after Diwali,” Avadhoot said. I had a hectic schedule so far since many days... and now I am planning to take a much-deserved break. I will resume work after Diwali,” he signed off.

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