Avadhoot Gupte

Gupte moved to production and direction of feature films. His first venture was a 2010 Marathi film, Zenda, which created controversy. Zenda depicted a feud between two cousins in rival political parties, inspired by the real-life feud between Raj Thackeray, chief of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and his cousin, Uddhav Thackeray, executive president of Shiv Sena. Gupte believes that it is more about the Marathi youth and the volunteers working in political parties, with just a couple of characters in the film representing Thackerays and that the film is "serious and not a political satire". Before the final release in public, the film was shown to the Thackerays and had received a green signal from them. The film was released in January 2010 in theatres across Maharashtra state. The release was delayed for protests against the film by "Swabhiman Organisation" headed by Nitesh Rane. Rane opposed a character in the film that resembled his father Narayan Rane, the ex-Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the then Minister of Revenue for the state.

Gupte's career as a singer started when he won the national level competition of TVS - Sa Re Ga Ma in the year 1996. Since then he has lent his voice to various varieties of songs from Lok Sangit to Rock style songs in Marathi and film songs for both Marathi & Hindi movies.

Avadhoot Gupte (Marathi pronunciation: [əʋəd̪ʱuːt̪ ɡupt̪e]; born 19 February 1977) is an Indian singer, musician, writer, music & film director, film producer, television presenter and actor who works primarily in Marathi Cinema. He started his career as a film director with Zenda in 2010.