 "Binod Chaudhary")
The rain fell in sheets, causing a raucous drumbeat in the car cabin, yet the traffic on the expressway to Gurgaon moved smoothly and I was able to reach The Oberoi at 7:00 pm: on time. A winding pathway flanked by thick trees, which looked intimidating in the dark night as they swayed in the wind, led to the hotel. Binod Chaudhary was on his way. For the next five minutes or so, as I waited in the all-glass lobby, the architectural genius of the place struck me. The lobby overlooked a water body and beyond that were some high-end retail stores. The rooms were housed in a block to the right. The Badals had indeed put up a fancy place.
Then Chaudhary walked in, greeting me from a distance. He was dressed in semi-formals: a jacket and a tie with suede shoes. "Let's have a drink first." Only highlanders know the importance of getting this very important ritual of daily life out of the way. We climbed two floors down to the Piano Bar. Chaudhary ordered French Shiraz, while I asked for my favourite tote for wet evenings, in fact every evening, Glenfiddich.
Chaudhary is Nepal's first billionaire. He owns many businesses across the world. What he is best known for is Wai-Wai instant noodles and Nabil Bank. He operates 10 properties along with the Taj Group, and hopes to put up five or six more in the days to come. All our previous meetings had taken place in one Taj hotel or the other. So I was a little surprised when he chose a rival hotel for today.
Chaudhary uses delightful everyday expressions to make profound points. The Nepali twang in his speech is music to the ear. He doesn't believe in sacrifice and compromise. Unlike Indian businessmen, Chaudhary talks freely, not caring to couch his criticism of people in niceties. That makes his memoir, Making it Big, such a delightful read. "I said to myself that whatever you want to write, you must write it dil khol ke". And then with a touch of pride: "Nobody has contested even one fact in the book."
Actually, Chaudhary had written his memoirs in Nepali in 2012, which sold over 40,000 copies. "In Nepal, on an average, 50 people read one book. So we are talking of a huge readership." Penguin published its "updated and international" version earlier this year. Translations, including in Arabic, are underway.
The book describes in chilling detail how businessmen were arm-twisted into submission when Nepal was a monarchy. They were required to pay bribes twice over: once to the government and the "second was exhorted from behind closed doors by those who held the reins of power". The businessmen would make all the investments and then the royals would walk in and decide their stake. Invariably, they took 51 per cent. Or else, all hell was guaranteed.
To avoid trouble, Chaudhary made Prince Dhirendra his business partner. All gates and passageways opened up with minimum fuss. The Prince broke the tradition and was happy with a minority stake in Chaudhary's ventures. Unfortunately for the businessman, Dhirendra perished in the bloody palace massacre of 2001.
His widow, Prekshya Rajya Laxmi Devi, was less accommodative of the Marwari: she announced that she would sell her husband's stake in a steel mill to his rival. This would have been disastrous. Chaudhary refused to be hectored and produced a piece of paper in which Dhirendra had written that he had taken money from the businessman to buy the 49 per cent stake; selling these shares would have been unethical. The queen left in a huff; Chaudhary sent her legal notices, demanding the money her husband had taken be returned.
He followed it up with a rights issue, to which the queen did not subscribe and which brought down her stake. Fearing retribution, Chaudhary became a vocal proponent of multi-party democracy in Nepal: nobody would dare touch a public leader. After a while, the queen relented and returned the money.
The queen later died in an air crash, Chaudhary said matter-of-factly.
Chaudhary may hold the average Nepali's deep suspicion of the Indian government ("if every time there is a regime change, your name comes up, then you are responsible for the welfare of the country. A prosperous Nepal is good for India"), but he is a great fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The two had met in Ahmedabad in 2010-11, when Chaudhary had gone there to attend a business conference. Modi told him he had brought up a boy from Nepal who had wandered all the way to Gujarat as a child and now didn't remember where his family lived. "I want to unite him with his family; if you can help me, I will come to Nepal."
Chaudhary said it would be better if he sought the help of the government agencies, but Modi was adamant: "He said this needed the genius of a private enterprise." Once he was back in Kathmandu, Chaudhary had all but forgotten about the request but he was in for a surprise: a formal request from Modi was waiting for him.
And he was able to find the lad's whereabouts. "How? I will tell you during dinner," Chaudhary said as we moved to Amaranta on the same floor, the minimalist dining space that has earned a name in high-quality seafood. Fresh cache is flown in from the Andhra Coast every morning. But none of this Chaudhary, a vegetarian, could partake of. He ordered okra and Thai curry, and I asked for steamed fish.
By the time we wound up a couple of hours later, Chaudhary forgot to recount that story, just as I forgot to ask. Instead, Modi hogged the limelight. "He created a huge uproar of emotion when he came to Nepal," Chaudhary said. But wasn't that lost in last year's blockade? Modi, according to Chaudhary, wanted a special cell within his office for Nepal, but Nepali politicians thwarted his attempts. "Modi travels all over the world; after a while he also lost interest and policy making on Nepal reverted to the same old fellows."
I don't know if Modi indeed ran out of patience, but he sure has accumulated some serious frequent flier points.
Next up, Chaudhary wants to bring Nabil Bank to India and set up a Bollywood theme park in Mumbai. His logic is straightforward and elegant: every visitor to Mumbai wants to see filmdom; and his park will tell stories of film stars like Shammi Kapoor, Madhubala and Rajesh Khanna. No mention of the current crop of superstars.
This perhaps stems from Chaudhary's visit to Mumbai in the 1970s to catch a glimpse of the stars. That was also the time he cut a music album of Nepali love songs.
Meanwhile, his Wai-Wai business in India, which he feeds through nine factories and which fell to a quarter after the Maggi controversy last year ("for no fault of my own"), is back on track. "We have 27 per cent market share," Chaudhary said. He attributed its success to the fact that he always listens to janata janardan - his customers and his employees. That is his primary business mantra.
He is an unabashed believer in Godmen, supplies herbs to Ramdev ("marketing genius") and counts at least two life-altering experiences: once when his father's cancer was cured after a meeting with Sai Baba and again when he survived a very strong earthquake in Santiago.
Chaudhary can be a bagful of stories. Unfortunately, I had 40 km to drive to reach home.
After three and a half hours, we called it quits. The rain had stopped. I rolled down the windows to let the cool monsoon air into my head.
