EYES WIDE OPEN

BY WHITNEY BUTLER
|
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE ARGUELLES
“I have always believed, and I still believe,
that whatever good or bad fortune may come
our way we can always give it meaning and
transform it into something of value.”
EYES WIDE OPEN
—Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
DR. MANOJ MOTWANI SPEAKS
CANDIDLY ON FINDING HIS SIGHT.
In 1974, at the age of six, Manoj Motwani traded the British
private school gardens of Gwalior, India, for the brick and
asphalt of Queens, New York. He recalls his elementary
school, PS201, with the impersonal tone one might use to
greet a stranger. If the collision of culture was not trouble
enough, becoming a star student in corrective glasses would
certainly make it harder for a skinny Hindu kid. It was a bluecollar neighborhood with tough kids on the playground—a
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place where this story begins.
“I would read to escape,” said Motwani. “Sometimes
I would wish that I wasn’t so smart so that [the teachers]
wouldn’t like me so much.”
Motwani’s love for the written word is distinct. “I think if
my parents had let me, I would have liked to have become
a writer,” he remarked. Notwithstanding his appreciation for
literature is fundamental, he has a hard time sifting through
a mental collection of favorite titles and authors that,
alike, have inspired him through various stages of life—a
considerable motif in his colloquial speech—always moving
forward, always discovering.
By the time he was in high school, his family had moved
to Long Island, where the schools were nicer, the population
larger. The need to understand himself in new detail became
more important—as it often does in adolescence—through
youthful interactions, which in his parents’ opinion were
deemed unnecessary.
“I wasn’t allowed to date in high school,” he said. “That
just wasn’t something I got to do. I missed out on a lot . . .
you learn how to deal with people and, more importantly,
how to deal with yourself. I was still struggling to adapt to
the culture of the United States, but I was also trying to
figure myself out. I was expending a lot of energy just trying
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to understand where I belonged and where I fit in.
“I idled my way through everything,” he continued. “It
wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that it wasn’t going
to be good enough.” Lucky for him, his lack of academic
effort went almost completely unnoticed.
Motwani attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
in upstate New York, where he enjoyed scholarships on
account of his academic excellence. Founded in 1824, RPI
is the country’s oldest technological research university, and
it became the place where discovery and important career
choices intersected. On the one hand, his love of science and
technology would be satiated, on the other, “it was a school
made up of 80 percent male students,” he joked.
“Many people go into medicine because of personal
contact they’ve had in the medical field. It’s usually very
personal,” he explained. “I got pushed towards medicine
because my dad wanted me to be a doctor.”
Motwani was also nearsighted. He began a love affair
with understanding how the human eye works in the third
grade, which, like most things, ignited an unrelenting quest
for answers—a baseline pushing him forward, driving him
like the pulsing rhythm of EDM music which he surprisingly
loves. So when he was accepted into medical school, Albany
Medical College, one of the oldest medical schools in the
nation, becoming an eye surgeon was an obvious choice.
“I like knowing how things work . . . I wanted to know why
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I was the way I was,” he said. “The promise of laser vision
correction was extraordinary to me.”
While med school proved a parental equilateral, it also
afforded him the opportunity to put himself together—a
marriage of his unabashed love for science and his need to
understand how his own body worked, how he could fix his
own sight, and maybe more.
“While I was in med school, they were already doing
laser vision correction in other parts of the world,” Motwani
explained, elaborating on our country’s slow progress of
particular sciences per stringent regulatory limitations. “We
didn’t even allow laser corrective surgeries in the U.S. until
1996,” he concluded.
“To me, it made perfect sense. Here is this tech-head
guy that can build his own computer . . . I wasted constant
hours playing laser video games, and now I get to use this
incredible laser to fix the problem that has bedeviled me my
whole life,” he explained.
While the path lay ahead, new challenges surfaced. The
prospect of his career in refractive surgeries had the young
doctor spinning. With limited resources available in the
United States, prestigious fellowships that didn’t actually train
in refractive surgery, Motwani needed a mentor.
“Refractive training was too new in this country and it
was hard to find training,” he explained. “The only doctors
performing the surgeries wanted us to pay to watch them. It
was incredibly difficult to learn anything.” Motwani traveled
all over the country looking for a way to learn the skills he
desperately wanted to acquire.
“Sometimes it’s not what you know,” he said, “it’s who you
know.” Dr. Enrique Suarez hailed from Venezuela, a country
that was progressively implementing laser corrective surgery
at the time. It was by chance that Suarez and Motwani met
through a mutual friend. Touched by Motwani’s tenacity and
passion, Suarez invited Motwani, now 30, to learn from his
practice in Venezuela.
“The sheer volume of surgeries he was performing each
day was unheard of in the States,” he explained. “I would
see a dozen patients in a day and learn how to handle all the
resulting problems from the ground up.”
After a brief stint in Florida, Motwani came out to San
Diego at the behest of two colleagues who tried to make a go
of things in a market that was growing considerably favorable
to the elective surgery. Eventually, he bought out the pair
and built Motwani Lasik Institute, which now stands as the
second-oldest practice of its kind in San Diego.
Medical school and Dr. Suarez had prepared him for
the challenges of the human eye, yet the reality of running
a successful business and doing all the marketing and
management were skills that required lifelong dedication.
“They didn’t teach us any of that stuff in med school,” he
concluded. But while the business grew and the material
pleasures of his successful career
blossomed, so too did new temptation.
“I was running with the wrong
circles,” he said. “I was lost again, and
it was a terrible time in my personal
life. I was with women that loved what I
had—they didn’t love me. People think
that because you’re successful, drive a
nice car and live in La Jolla that life is
perfect. But when you’re successful and you can
fix every eye that comes along, you get cocky. I
wanted to understand how people worked and
fix them, but people don’t work that way.”
As quickly as the eye blinks, in between
moments passed, there yet remains opportunity.
From outside a glass home it often seems
easier to throw stones than seek shelter from
within, where Dr. Manoj Motwani remained,
contemplating his future with a critical eye.
“I met Lyra at a restaurant downtown,”
he said. The sound of her name relaxed his
shoulders as an affectionate smile spread
across his face. “She’s smart and decent,
beautiful and fun.”
Though guarded for several months during
the beginning of their courtship, through
patience and understanding Lyra has brought
him back to a place where he was unsure he might ever be
able to go again. Through her love he has found himself again.
“That was when I figured it out,” he said. “Now I
understand where I was supposed to be years ago . . . this is
the first time in my life that I am with someone that I want to
be with and not someone I am ‘supposed’ to be with.”
Dr. Motwani is a respected authority in the LASIK industry,
specializing in refractive surgeries that have helped thousands
of people see as well as, if not better than, with the eyes they
were born. His admiration for technology has allowed him to
remain on the cusp of innovation, providing patients of these
elective surgeries with the best care and service.
“In medicine the stakes are much higher. When you’re
running a business and practicing medicine, you have to
maintain integrity throughout both. You’ve got to hold your
guns and stick to them.” Motwani joked that he is getting
old. “I’m doing my own thing and I wouldn’t change it. How
many people in this country can say they do what I do? How
lucky am I?”
He and Lyra got engaged earlier this year and are enjoying
the very best of San Diego’s dining, nightlife and culture,
exploring the world and each other during their engagement.
Moreover, Dr. Motwani has set his sight on giving back to
the community. “I’m taking the lessons my parents thought
me, lessons from my faith and the great Mahatma Gandhi,
Left page: Dr. Mowani and fiancé Lyra in
the lobby at the Andaz Hotel.
Top left: Dr. Motwani performing
LASIK surgery. Above: Dr. Motwani
teaching a goal setting class at Connections
Housing Project. Left: Dr. Motwani on the
rooftop of the Andaz Hotel.
and working to better the world
we live in,” he said.
In 2010, Dr. Motwani rolled up
his sleeves to feed the homeless
of downtown San Diego at
The Salvation Army. He then
helped found a charity to feed
the homeless, Urban Angels,
which later partnered with the
Connections Housing Project to
provide food donations. Located
on 6th and B Street, Connections has decreased homelessness
in the area by 70%. Hungry for more, he started teaching and
leading a goal setting class at the shelter for individuals who
are struggling to find their own way. Motwani decided he was
going to fix the problem one person at a time.
“Our mission is not just to help those in need, but to find
solutions that solve the problem and cycle of homelessness,”
he said. “To do that, you have to inspire these people to
think and to fix the problems that led them to lose essentially
everything.” He found a like-minded literati in the new
artistic director of The Old Globe Theatre, Barry Edelstein,
who brought theater workshops to Connections, with plans
to bring more theater in the future.
“These people look just like you and me,” he said.
“Sometimes, it’s just one wrong turn. People just need help
getting back on track.” In finding himself, Motwani is helping
others do the same thing.
A year-and-a-half ago, Dr. Motwani underwent a two-part
laser corrective surgery for his nearsightedness. Today he is
looking out at the world with both eyes wide open and with a
calm sense of self, developed over a lifetime—a collection of
experiences that has made him whole.
2014 Porsche 911 provided by Porsche of San Diego.
porscheofsandiego.com
Shot on location at the Andaz Hotel in Downtown San Diego.
sandiego.andaz.hyatt.com
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