I was living in Cambodia at the time, in the Khmer ghetto surrounding Boeung Kok Lake in Phnom Penh, writing my first short story. I had just finished reading Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy (the classic of the genre). And I came downstairs 
from my little rented room hot, wanting to talk to somebody about it.
The first person I ran into was Pico Iyer, the well known travel writer. He was in the Same-Same Cafe visiting a mutual friend who ran it, the American monk in his book Lady and the Monk.
Pico said he’d heard of Golf in the Kingdom, and knew it was a classic of the genre. But he hadn’t read it. And while the monk and I shot pool, I told Pico that I thought golf-as-life was a great idea, and that I liked the book. But I didn’t think the author had the spiritual journey quite right (you make less of the ego, not more of it). Later, when alone and out walking I wondered, What if the story took place in India?
Since then I’ve been at work on this project, traveling many times to India for my research.
