How I Came to Write Round Pizza In A Square Box

Round Pizza In A Square Box

Excerpt from the Introduction

In 2010, I was invited to give a guest lecture to the students at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. Nearly a year later, on January 19th, 2011, I was reflecting upon my lecture while taking a shower at my house in Canada. As soap streamed through my hair and washed over my eyes, the entire outline for a new book came suddenly to my mind. I wrestled with the shower handles and called out to my wife Susan to come quickly with a scratch pad and pen. Stifling a smile, Susan took a seat on the lid of the toilet and patiently began taking notes on my ramblings. The steam wetted and wrinkled her makeshift outline, but by the end of my shower, we had what I needed to call Bethany and begin a journey with her to pen another story. Having begun with my first memoires, Chilies in an Indian Curry, it was time to move on to the next item on the menu. It was time for pizza.

Not many weeks later, Northwest University unwittingly confirmed my book idea when they informed me that following my 2010 lecture I remained the highest rated of all their guest speakers. I took courage from this. It was time to take spoken words and put them into writing. Meanwhile, I accepted a second invitation to speak to Northwest University’s students. This time, my brother Sanjay Singh joined me in sharing a second perspective about India viewed through the lens of our shared upbringing and his unique academic and work experience in a context and country so different from the land of our origin.

The day of our presentation, Sanjay, currently serving as Vice President at Starbucks, and I shared with the students a simple, yet important message concerning good-intentioned people working for empowerment and change on behalf of disadvantaged societies and people groups. Taking turns sharing our collaborative experiences through two different work and life contexts, we demonstrated that there needs to be a change in the way that we go about philanthropy. Whether a not-for-profit advocate, donor, or volunteer, it was time now to take a second look at how we are utilizing our time, money, and skills to make a change in this world. “How can we turn our good intentions into powerful action strategies?” we challenged.

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