"My name wasn't always Harry Hideaway.
I grew up Harish Mohan Patel, the second youngest
of seven sons of Mohan Gutilda Patel, of Mithapur, Gujarat.
The legal name change came to me as an inspiration
when I bought this motel, last winter.
Harry's Hideaway-- comfiest beds, cheapest rates.
When in Granada, et cetera, I joked to my wife.
Not in Granada, Spain, she said.
My wife has seen more of the world than I have.
Her father is in petrochemicals, and her paternal uncles
owned businesses in Kenya, Dubai, and Bahrain.
She was born in a big city--
Vadodara, I in a coastal village.
I therefore defer to her.
But in Granada, Colorado, I objected.
You don't like the name?
I chanted hideaway, hideaway, hideaway,
like a mantra to hypnotize her.
Finally, she gave in with a shrug.
She said, you be Mr. Hideaway, I'll stay Mrs. Patel.
Good thing we're not buying a Red Roof Inn.
It wasn't an enthusiastic endorsement,
but from the way her cobra long braid
writhed down her back as she kept shrugging,
I decided she not only approved, but was
trying to hide her excitement.
We've been in the motel business in Colorado long enough
to know that taping an American owned sign to the window
doesn't mean what it should to customers when
the owner's name is HM Patel.
What we've learned about motel management,
we've learned on the job.
My formal training is in mechanical engineering,
and my wife has a bachelor's degree in domestic science.
Until seven years ago--
seven years and seven months, to the day, to be exact--
I was the chief engineer of Automoto,
a company that still manufactures
automotive parts in Detroit.
Mrs. Patel and I were living with our three lovely girls,
Magdana, Dhriti, and Kanta in a five bedroom detached
in Southfield, Michigan in those days, and not in a motel room
with two double beds.
Getting into motel managing was Mrs. Patel's brainwave.
Downsizing is a global phenomenon,
she said, the night I had to inform her
that I'd been let go by Automoto Limited.
My brilliant idea had been to get myself killed
in an automobile accident.
That way, Mrs. Patel could collect on my life insurance
policies.
I'm a great believer in insurance--
accident, earthquakes, flood, lava damage, hijacking--
my family is very well protected.
But what insurance company offers a policy against shame?
That tortured night in Southfield,
after the girls had gone upstairs
to bed, Mrs. Patel brought me a brandy,
and with it, a month old letter from her sister, whose
cardiologist husband had invested
in tenements and motels, rather than in stocks as I had.
Last month, three more, she said.
A slum landlord, I muttered.
In this country you, know what judges do to slum landlords?
Three motels, she said.
Slum tenants in America are nothing but trouble.
What we should have done, we should have bought a motel
when you still had a--
Who's going to hire a 48-year-old man,
is that your point?
I took a long self-pitying swallow of brandy.
Mrs. Patel let that pass.
Instead, she concentrated on coiling the thick bread
into a bun the size of a baseball,
and anchoring it to her head.
This involved much frowning and sighing,
as some of the hairpins--
big thick metal ones with sturdy prongs, that she stocked up
on in her favorite Indian grocery cum variety
store, in Detroit just before we left--
went through the bun and gouged her scalp.
When she was done, she said with a beatific smile on her face,
God is sending a message, but you're not hearing.
You know why?
Because of all your earwax.
[LAUGHTER]
Shall I heat up a little mustard oil?
She herself was a vigorous user of hygienic devices,
such as tongue scrapers, oil dipped q-tips, and poultices.
What's the message, I cried, starve to death, go on welfare,
go back to Mithapur?
The loss is Automotos, Mrs. Patel snapped.
Now, you work for yourself.
That's the message, more or less.
Be your own boss.
Where is the capital, foolish woman?
You need capital to get started.
That was unfair, I knew.
My wife, the daughter and granddaughter
of wily businessmen, fills out our income tax forms.
Three new motels just last month,
she said, two of them in New Jersey itself--
Paramus and Paterson.
Why hire a stranger when you can get a relative's help?
My wife's sister, Mrs. Shah, lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
The sisters have two uncles, both
with large families in Jersey City,
and a married brother in Hoboken.
I understood that she wanted me to write to Mrs. Shah's
millionaire husband, about my willingness
to manage one of his motels."