At 23, he sealed a deal for the international rights of Wai Wai (quick, quick in Thai) noodles. And last year, Forbes listed him as Nepal’s first and only dollar-billionaire.

Binod K Chaudhary never went to business school, instead a discotheque taught him how to run a business when he was only 19. “I was managing customers, serving them the best liquor and, of course, constantly assessing people at the same time. No business school could teach me that,” says Chaudhary, now 58.

Copper Floor, his discotheque, was thriving when it suddenly shut down two years down the line. “We had psychedelic lights and a music system from Japan, and it was a huge success in Kathmandu, but we had to close it down,” he says. His family was against the business and his father objected to his eldest son’s late-night life.

This experience taught him two lessons — family comes first, but business succeeds when you think out of the box.

He belongs to a third-generation trader family that migrated to Nepal from Rajasthan more than a century ago. His father, Lunkaran Das Chaudhary, had a well-established business in textiles and biscuits, and owned, among other things, Arun Emporium, a popular departmental store in Kathmandu that was a hit among tourists in the ’70s and ’80s.

The noodle business had its beginnings in the unlikeliest of places. “Wai Wai was born on the baggage belt of the Tribhuvan International Airport,” says Chaudhary. On his return from trips to Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, Chaudhary often noticed large cartons of noodles arriving at the airport. He learnt that people travelling to the Far East usually brought these back with them.

A trip to Thailand was all it took to seal a deal for the international rights of Wai Wai noodles. A factory was set up in Nepal in the mid-1980s. With his family owning a flour mill, raw material was never a problem.

The company started with 30,000 packets and now manufactures more than 2 billion a year. Priced at ₹10 each, the noodles come in packs of veg masala and chicken flavours with three seasonings — taste enhancer, chilli powder and onion-flavoured oil. “We have two per cent market share globally and 25 per cent in India,” he says.

In India, the growth has been entirely word-of-mouth. “Our customers are our true ambassadors. Also, this kind of product requires an efficient supply chain. India is a huge market. You cannot have a factory in south India and serve in the Northeast. We want to ramp up production facilities. We will think of advertising later,” he says.

With factories in Assam, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, the company plans more in Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh), Purnia (Bihar) and Roopangarh (Rajasthan).

Today, Chaudhary’s business empire is spread across finance, real estate, hydro-powder, education, hospitality and telecom services in more than 20 countries.

In 1996, the Cinnovation Group, of which he is chairman, tied up with Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces to form a 50-50 joint venture that owns and operates properties in Sri Lanka, Maldives and Malaysia. In India, the group plans to open three boutique hotels under the Zinc Journey brand in Rajasthan, Kerala and the Northeast. A food park in Ajmer is also under construction.

Eager to increase business in India, he wishes the country would do more to attract people like him. “It’s not easy to do business in India. For instance, hospitality is a rich man’s business. I am invited to many States to set up noodle factories, but no one encourages the hospitality sector. That’s why India sees only five million tourists a year, whereas Thailand has 20 million,” he says. Chaudhary also wants the country to improve basic facilities such as airport, road transport and security.

Asserting that his company is in India for the long haul, he confidently says, “You will see our companies listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange one day.”

Back home, as a member of Nepal’s Parliament from 2008 to 2012, he helped draft its new Constitution. “Things are slowly changing and I hope Nepal will be prosperous one day,” he says.

While Chaudhary takes his business seriously, he wears the billionaire tag rather lightly. His office in Delhi has none of the trappings of a billion-dollar business, nor does the man who owns it. So, there are no multiple levels of secretaries to get through to reach him.

Chaudhary laughs when asked how he feels about being called the ‘Noodle King’. “Media gave me that title. I had no say in that. But, I have to live up to the expectations. That’s a lot of pressure,” he says.

He relaxes by playing golf and squash over weekends, pampers himself during annual wellness detox trips and unwinds on yearly treks, including forays into the Himalayas, right up to Everest base camp.

Movies are another major indulgence for this fan of actor Dev Anand. Besides singing modern and folk songs for the local radio, Chaudhary even produced a film called Basudev back in 1985.

His marriage with Sarika Devi — the couple has three sons: Nirvana, 33, Rahul, 32 and Varun, 28 — was no less filmy. Sarika, the daughter of a family friend, and he eloped to Delhi after his family objected to the marriage on the grounds of caste differences. “I asked my friends to organise the wedding at Maurya Sheraton,” says Chaudhary, “It was supposed to be a hush-hush affair but slowly everyone dropped in, including my father!”

( Sarbani Sen is a Delhi-based writer)

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