Plot
Trying to Grow features a young man, born in Bombay, with brittle bones, who would never grow taller than four feet. His mother, an Anglophile enamoured with everything English (stockpiling Quality Street to Marmite), names her little boy Brit, after his brittle bones and because it was short for her favourite Britain.
Brit turns out to be a spiky, opinionated and naughty - he knows his small size allows people to assume he is a safe and innocent haven for their secrets. He prefers sex to Shakespeare, although he gets to be good at both as he grows older. He's schooled at home, so he knows more about Charles I than the boys next door - until, that is, puberty arrives, with a sexy new boy next door. A relationship with a woman also follows. All through is the tenderness and heartbreak of a young man experiencing love and desire - having his heart reinforced and mended, which is far more intense than the pain of his broken bones.
The characters are semi-autobiographical and set in the Parsi community in India.
The Parsis are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire to escape religious persecution and conversion to Islam.The Parsi people comprise the older of the Indian subcontinent's two Zoroastrian communities vis-à-vis the Iranis, whose ancestors migrated to British-ruled India from Qajar-era Iran. According to a 16th-century Parsi epic, Qissa-i Sanjan, Zoroastrian Persians continued to migrate to the Indian subcontinent from Greater Iran in between the 8th and 10th centuries, and ultimately settled in present-day Gujarat after being granted refuge by a local Hindu king, Jadi Rana.
Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R. K. Narayan, Ahmad Ali and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an International readership. Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of classics of modern Indian English literature; they are noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and for their analysis of impoverishment, exploitation and misfortune. He became known for his protest novel Untouchable (1935), followed by other works on the Indian poor such as Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937). He is also noted for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English, and was a recipient of the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.
Ruskin Bond is an Indian author. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, was published in 1956, and it received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. Bond has authored more than 500 short stories, essays, and novels which includes 69 books for children. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives with his adopted family in Landour, Mussoorie, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey and wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou, and Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film that she wrote and directed.
Nina Wadia is an English-Indian actress and comedian. She is known for portraying Zainab Masood in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, Aunty Noor in Citizen Khan, Mrs Hussein in the BBC comedy Still Open All Hours and for starring in the BBC Two sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.
Firdaus Kanga, born in Mumbai 1960 to a Parsi Family, Kanga is an Indian writer, journalist and actor who currently lives in London. He has written a novel Trying to Grow a semi-autobiographical novel set in India and a travel book ''Heaven on Wheels'', which shares about his experiences in United Kingdom where he met Stephen Hawking. A film was based on his novel Trying to Grow with the name of Sixth Happiness, where he himself played the role of a screenwriter and the lead character.
Waris Hussein is a British-Indian television and film director. At the beginning of his career he was employed by the BBC as its youngest drama director. He directed early episodes of Doctor Who, including the first serial, An Unearthly Child (1963), and later directed the multiple-award-winning Thames Television serial Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978).
The Bombay Tournament was an annual cricket competition held in British India between 1892 and 1946. Until 1936, matches were played on either the Gymkhana Ground in Bombay or the Deccan Gymkhana Ground in Poona, and then at the Brabourne Stadium in Bombay until the tournament was terminated in 1946. The tournament was known variously as the Bombay Presidency Match, Bombay Triangular, Bombay Quadrangular, and Bombay Pentangular, depending on the number of competing teams.
Hormasji "Homi" Maneckji Seervai (1906–1996) was an Indian jurist, lawyer and writer. He is also considered to be a renowned Constitutional expert, and his works are cited popularly in various Indian cases as well as journals.
Sir Pherozeshah Merwanjee Mehta was an Indian politician and lawyer from Bombay. He was knighted by the British Government in India for his service to the law. He became the Municipal commissioner of Bombay Municipality in 1873 and its president four times – 1884, 1885, 1905 and 1911. Mehta was one of the founding members and President of the Indian National Congress in 1890 held at Calcutta.
Sixth Happiness is a 1997 British drama film directed by Indian director Waris Hussein. It is based on the 1991 autobiography of Firdaus Kanga, entitled Trying to Grow. Kanga played himself in this film about Britain, India, race and sex.
Maneckji Limji Hataria (1813–1890) was an Indian scholar and civil rights activist of Parsi Zoroastrian descent, who took up the cause of the Zoroastrians of Iran.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior," a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.
Gurcharan Das is an Indian author, who wrote a trilogy based on the classical Indian goals of the ideal life.
Fitoor is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic drama directed by Abhishek Kapoor, produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur, and written by Kapoor and Supratik Sen based on Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations. The film features Tabu, Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapur in lead roles. Filming began in Kashmir in November 2014 and concluded in October 2015.
Amrit Keshav Nayak was a Parsi theatre actor-director, lyricist and Gujarati author. He joined theatre at early age and later directed several plays including adaptations of plays of Shakespeare. He wrote plays and novels also.
Dr Hormasji Dorabji Kanga also known as HD Kanga was an Indian cricketer who played first-class cricket for the Parsis cricket team between 1899 and 1921 as an all-rounder and opening batsman. He was the first Indian to score a double century in a first-class match, and the Kanga Cricket League is named after him. His older twin brothers Dinshaw and MD also played first-class cricket for Parsees.
Mehli Dinshaw Irani was an Indian cricketer, who played as a left-handed batsman and wicket-keeper. Irani played in the Kanga Cricket League for over 50 years. He made one appearance for Bombay in the Ranji Trophy, and also played club cricket for Bombay University and Parsee Cyclists.
Kavasji Palanji Khatau, also spelled Cowasji Palanji Khatao, was a singer, actor, director, and owner of a Parsi theatre company, who started his career with the Empress Victoria Theatrical Company. Despite opposition from his employers, he introduced Mary Fenton, his wife and the first Anglo-Indian actress, to the stage. This led him to start his own company, the Alfred Theatre Company, where he, his wife, and other actors had successful careers.
Jahangir Pestonji Khambhata, also spelt Jehangir Pestonjee Khambatta (1856–1916) was a Parsi theatre actor, director and manager, as well as a playwright of the Gujarati theatre.
