Sixth Happiness is about Brit, a boy born with brittle bones who never grows taller than four feet, and his sexual awakening as family life crumbles around him. The story begins in the early 1960s in the Parsee community of Mumbai. Parsees, descendants of the Persian empire, settled in western India after escaping an Islamic invasion in Persia in the seventh century. Under the Raj, Parsees had a close relationship with the British. Brit is named by his mother after his brittle bone condition and in tribute to her love of Britain.