SUMEET Tappoo has broken the mould. His family name may be synonymous with high quality retailing in Fiji but he has chosen a very different path.
You see, Sumeet Tappoo's first love is music.
Since he started singing Mukesh songs about the age of five, Sumeet has evolved into a very accomplished semi-classical singer.
So much so that he has performed in more than 200 concerts in places as far apart as the United Kingdom, America and India.
But wherever he is on the planet, his introduction on stage is the same.
"It's always Fiji before my name," Sumeet says.
"I am very proud to be flying the flag wherever I am."
Over the past year or so, Sumeet has taken that flag and his voice into Bollywood.
It is a tough industry to break into, where respect has to be earned years in advance.
"The Indian music industry is very competitive," Sumeet says. "There are new music stars being created every day through programs such as Indian Idol which Sony puts out and is very big.
"Zee TV has its own program and Star has one as well, all of which create wonderful opportunities for aspiring singers."
For most, if not all of those singers, landing a playback contract for a Bollywood production is the crme-de-la-crme of the industry.
Playback is a feature of Indian movies where actors appear to sing on camera but actual singers record the track offstage.
Such an opportunity allows singers a lucrative chance to have their name associated with million-dollar productions and highly popular film stars, which in turn appeal to more than a billion people in India and about 20 million who make up the Indian diaspora overseas.
But like most things at the top of any industry, getting that sort of exposure through Bollywood playback recordings is tough.
Those aspiring for it must therefore do something special to be noticed.
"What a lot of singers who are now established have done to get into Bollywood is first become known in a different genre.
"It's what you have to do, especially when you have 60 or 70 well-established singers competing for one spot in a Bollywood movie."
For the Fiji boy who moved to Mumbai in 2004, that path to being noticed came from his work in the semi-classical genre of Indian music.
Sumeet submitted himself to the guidance of a man he first met when he was four — Sri Anup Jalota.
He took Sumeet under his wing in Mumbai and helped develop his career.
That career grew out of the adoption of the age-old guru shishya tradition where Sumeet submitted himself to the teachings of Jalota in mastering the semi-classical genre of Indian music.
The son of Tappoo Group executive director Mahendra Tappoo went on to become a senior shishya of Jalota who is known as a bhajan samrat or emperor of bhajan.
Together they released three devotional albums — Bhajan Sheetal, Sai Charanam and Sai Surya Samaan.
His work in bhajans saw Sumeet become noticed as a musical talent.
In 2005, he was chosen as one of six singers to perform at the Young Ghazal Idols of India concert.
He performed for the main Krishna Janamasthmi celebrations in Mumbai in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The highlight though was when he became one of four young stars selected to sing at India's most prestigious Ghazal festival, Khazana, in 2006.
It was there that Sumeet performed alongside legends such as his guru Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas, Talat Aziz, Penaaz Mesani, Rajendra and Nina Mehta, Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain, Bhupinder and Mitali.
It was the equivalent of a rock and roll fan being selected to sing alongside Elvis and The Beatles.
Sumeet worked on a couple of playback opportunities, one which arose in a small budget Bhoj Puri movie.
He worked on a comedy called Osama, a movie yet to be released in which he performed with Amit Kumar, who is the son of Bollywood playback legend Kishore Kumar. Earlier this year, he got his first big Bollywood break in Maalik Ek, a movie which is presently in production, based on the life story of Shirdi Sai Baba.
Sumeet was selected to sing a duet with legendary playback singer, Anuradha Paudwal.
The boy who spent his primary school years at Mount Saint Mary's in Nadi had his foot in the door.
"In every Bollywood movie, there may be five or six songs of which most will be assigned to Indian playback singers who have already established themselves.
"That leaves everyone else to try for one song.
"It's only just beginning for me as far as movies are concerned. It's a whole new world of opportunities."
One such opportunity, which was the reason Sumeet was in Fiji last week, was the release of his bhajan album with Bollywood playback diva Sadhana Sargam titled 'Ram Darshan'.
The eight-track album was launched in Bombay by Indian music legends Jajit Singh and Anup Jalota and has now made it to Fiji music shelves.
Sumeet had just five days in Fiji to promote the album and catch up with family and friends.
When asked how often he came back home to Fiji, Sumeet's father Mahendra Tappoo is quick to pipe up: "Not often enough!"
The 29-year-old admits it is sometimes hard not having enough time to be in Fiji.
Life in Mumbai, he says, is very different.
"You have to be positive about everything. There may be circumstances that can bring you down but there are many other things that over-ride that.
"I believe in good music. The industry did go down a trend of copying music from the West but now the industry has changed.
"Over the past year or so, it's become super in terms of music, lyrics, compositions, everything."
A Fiji boy at heart, Sumeet promises to return at the end of the year for concerts in Fiji which will have more music, greater variety and Mumbai-style entertainment.
