‘Wai Wai Became Emotional Memory’: Binod Chaudhary On Building A South Asian Icon

Nepal’s leading industrialist and entrepreneur Binod Chaudhary recently spoke to Ashutosh Kumar Thakur in Bengaluru about his memoir Made in Nepal: Lessons in Business Building from the Land of Everest, the evolution of the Chaudhary Group, Nepal’s changing political sphere, and the moral and economic anxieties of doing business in South Asia.

Q: Your book is ostensibly about business, but beneath it runs another story about uncertainty. Did you always know that instability would become part of your entrepreneurial education in Nepal?

A: In Nepal, uncertainty is not an interruption to business; it is the environment in which business is born. I did not grow up imagining stability as a guarantee. My grandfather came to Nepal with almost nothing. My father-built businesses through earthquakes, political transitions, shortages, and institutional fragility. By the time I entered business, I had already understood one thing very clearly: if you waited for certainty in Nepal, you would never begin.

Perhaps that is why resilience became more important to me than comfort. We built factories during political unrest, expanded during insurgency, and continued operating when many people advised us to shut down and leave. During the Maoist conflict, there were moments when transporting raw materials itself felt like a military operation. Yet we continued because thousands of livelihoods depended on us.

I often say that entrepreneurs from fragile economies develop stronger muscles for survival. When you grow in adversity, you stop fearing volatility. You learn to improvise, adapt, and move forward despite incomplete information. That becomes your competitive advantage.

Q: You grew up in Kathmandu at a time when Nepal remained deeply inward-looking. What did commerce mean in such a society?

A: Commerce in those days was not glamorous. It was survival, dignity, and continuity. Nepal was still a small, inward-looking kingdom. There was no culture of celebrating entrepreneurs. Business families worked quietly. Reputation mattered more than visibility. My earliest memories are of my grandfather carrying textiles to Rana palaces and my father painstakingly building relationships customer by customer. The shop was not merely a place of transaction, it was a place of trust.

Back then, business also represented aspiration. Imported products arriving in Kathmandu carried the fragrance of another world. People associated commerce with modernity and possibility. But at the same time, there was suspicion toward wealth. Entrepreneurs were
expected to succeed quietly, almost apologetically. That duality still exists in South Asia to some extent.

Q: Was business viewed with aspiration, suspicion, or simply necessity?

A: All three. Among ordinary families, business was necessity. Among the ambitious, it represented aspiration. And politically, it was often viewed with suspicion. South Asia inherited a strange relationship with wealth after colonialism and socialism. Profit was tolerated, but not always admired openly.

I have seen phases where entrepreneurs were treated almost as exploiters by default. Yet the same society depended on them for jobs, investment, and economic activity. This contradiction shaped many industrialists of my generation. Perhaps that is why we focused more on building than talking.

Q: The tone of your memoir is unusually restrained. Most business autobiographies attempt mythology. Yours often resists it. Was that a conscious choice?

A: Absolutely. I have never believed business leaders should become myths. Mythology removes humanity from the story. Real entrepreneurship is messy. It involves mistakes, fear, humiliation, uncertainty, setbacks, and sometimes loneliness. I wanted the book to feel honest. There was no reason to pretend the journey was linear. We lost partnerships. We faced betrayal. At one stage, our family business itself fragmented, and I had to rebuild almost from scratch. If the memoir has any value, I hope it lies in showing that endurance matters more than perfection.

Q: You describe the shift from trading to manufacturing almost as a philosophical transition. At what point did you realize that trading alone would not build something enduring?

A: Trading creates movement. Manufacturing creates roots.

The realization came gradually. Trading gives you margins; manufacturing gives you identity. When you manufacture, you create ecosystems factories, jobs, supply chains, skills, distribution networks. You become part of a nation’s economic architecture. The turning point for me was understanding that Nepal could not progress only by importing and reselling products. We had to create value ourselves. Wai Wai emerged partly from this realization. We had surplus flour production, and I needed to think beyond the traditional
model. Then came that famous moment at Tribhuvan Airport when I saw cartons of noodles arriving from Bangkok on the conveyor belt.
That conveyor belt changed my life.

Q: Wai Wai noodles are now embedded in everyday life across South Asia. But before they became a brand, they were simply a product from Nepal. Do you remember the first moment you felt Wai Wai had travelled beyond geography and become cultural memory?

A: Yes. It happened through students. Young Nepali students travelling to boarding schools and colleges in India began carrying Wai
Wai packets in their suitcases. Initially, I thought this was simply nostalgia. Later, I realized something deeper was happening. Wai Wai had become emotional memory.

Their Indian and Tibetan friends started tasting it. Gradually, Wai Wai stopped being “a noodle from Nepal.” It became part of youth culture itself.

That is when I understood that brands become powerful not when they dominate shelves, but when they enter memory. Once a product becomes associated with childhood, hostel life, friendships, or family moments, geography disappears.

Q: Nepal’s political life has moved through monarchy, democracy, insurgency, constitutional uncertainty, and unstable coalitions. Did politics remain background noise for business, or did it enter your office every day?

A: Every single day. In Nepal, politics and business cannot exist in separate rooms. Policy instability affects investment decisions immediately. Governments changed constantly. Regulations shifted.

Entire industries could become uncertain overnight. But I never wanted to become cynical about Nepal. Even during the darkest periods, I believed the country had immense potential. What saddened me was not instability alone, but the inability to focus on nation-building consistently. As I wrote in the book, politics for the sake of politics cannot build a country.

At the same time, those decades taught me patience. They taught me to think long term even when the short term looked chaotic.

Q: Business literature today celebrates disruption and speed. Do entrepreneurs emerging from fragile economies develop a fundamentally different temperament?

A: Yes. Entrepreneurs from fragile economies learn patience very early. In Silicon Valley, failure is often romanticized. In South Asia, failure can destroy entire families. That reality creates a different temperament. We become cautious dreamers. We calculate risk differently.
I often say the road to perfection is built on three things: passion, patience, and persistence. Those values sound unfashionable today because the world celebrates speed. But enduring institutions are rarely built overnight.

Q: There is a generation in South Asia that now associates entrepreneurship almost entirely with start-ups and technology. Your story belongs to another era, one rooted in manufacturing and slow institution-building. Do you think something valuable has been lost in the contemporary imagination of business?

A: Technology is transformative, and I admire young founders enormously. But yes, something important risks being forgotten: institution-building. Manufacturing teaches humility because you deal with people, logistics, infrastructure, regulation, labour, quality control, distribution, and time. You cannot scale only with imagination. You must build systems.

Today, many people want valuation before value creation. But enduring enterprises are built layer by layer over decades. Wai Wai did not become a global brand because of one brilliant idea. It became successful because we built factories, distribution systems, supply chains, and trust across multiple countries over forty years.

Q: Reading the book, one senses that diversification was not simply ambition but also a survival strategy. Did you expand because Nepal was volatile, or because volatility itself creates opportunity?

A: Both. Volatility teaches you not to depend excessively on one sector, one geography, or one political environment. Diversification became partly defensive and partly visionary. But volatility also creates openings. Many of our biggest opportunities emerged during periods when others were hesitant. When uncertainty rises, courage becomes valuable. I have always believed entrepreneurs must train themselves to see opportunity where others see disorder.

Q: Family businesses dominate much of South Asia, yet they are frequently criticized for opacity and concentration of power. What have you learned over decades about trust, succession, and the difficulty of institutionalizing a family enterprise?

A: The greatest challenge in family businesses is not growth. It is continuity. Families begin with emotional trust, but as businesses scale, emotion alone becomes insufficient. Systems become necessary. Governance becomes necessary. Professionalization
becomes necessary.

I learnt this painfully when our family business was divided. At that time, I felt devastated because I feared fragmentation would weaken our dreams. Yet in hindsight, it forced me to institutionalize the business differently and rebuild with greater clarity. Succession is not about transferring wealth. It is about transferring values, culture, discipline, and purpose.

Q: Nepal is often reduced to postcards of mountains or headlines of political instability. Did you consciously want this book to present another Nepal, one defined by enterprise, aspiration, and economic imagination?

A: Very much so. Nepal is far more than mountains and political headlines. It is a country of extraordinary
resilience, creativity, and entrepreneurial energy. I wanted readers to see another Nepal – the Nepal that builds, exports, dreams, innovates, and survives. I have always said: Nepal is me. It is my identity. Whatever success I have achieved emerged from this soil. If a global business can emerge from Nepal, then perhaps the world should rethink how it sees the country.

Q: Your generation of industrialists-built businesses without the institutional scaffolding available elsewhere. Did that make you more self-reliant, or more skeptical of the state itself?

A: Probably both. When systems are weak, entrepreneurs are forced to become problem-solvers far beyond business itself. We built infrastructure around our businesses because the infrastructure outside was inadequate. But I am not anti-state. A country cannot progress without strong institutions and effective governance. My frustration has always been with inconsistency, not with the idea of the state itself.

Q: One of the striking things about your story is that endurance seems more important than scale. Were there moments when survival itself felt like the real achievement?

A: Many times. During the insurgency, during political turmoil, during economic crises—there were periods when survival itself felt like victory. Keeping factories operational, protecting employees, maintaining distribution networks these were enormous challenges. People see the success afterward. They do not always see how close businesses sometimes come to collapse.

Q: Many entrepreneurs speak the language of ‘vision’. Your book often speaks instead about systems, distribution, consistency, and patience. Do you distrust grand narratives of entrepreneurial success?

A: I distrust simplification. Vision matters enormously. But vision without execution is theatre. Distribution, systems, supply chains, and consistency are what convert ideas into institutions. An entrepreneur cannot only be a dreamer. He must also be an operator.

Q: The book is candid about instability, but less detailed about labour conditions, inequality, or environmental pressures. Was that omission deliberate, or do you think business memoirs are often uncomfortable confronting the social costs of growth?

A: No serious entrepreneur can ignore those realities. But a memoir has limitations. It reflects one person’s lived journey, not an exhaustive socio-economic study. That said, I believe businesses today must think beyond profitability. Sustainability, inclusion, and dignity of labour are no longer optional subjects. The future of capitalism will depend on whether growth becomes more humane and responsible.

Q: Large business groups in South Asia are frequently seen as benefiting from proximity to political power. How do you respond to critics who argue that no major business in the region can truly remain independent of the state?

A: In South Asia, businesses and governments inevitably interact because policy frameworks shape economic life deeply. But there is a difference between engagement and dependency. Any entrepreneur operating across decades and political systems will naturally interact with multiple governments. The real question is whether the business survives only because of political patronage or whether it creates genuine value independently. Our group survived monarchies, democracies, insurgencies, and changing governments precisely because our businesses were rooted in consumers and markets, not in any one political arrangement.

Q: Nepal continues to witness large-scale migration of young people seeking opportunities abroad. As someone who built one of the country’s largest enterprises, do you worry about Nepal becoming a nation that exports labour more successfully than it creates opportunity?

A: Very deeply. One of my greatest concerns is the emotional and economic cost of migration. Entire generations are growing up separated from their families. In the book, I wrote about how deeply this troubled me. Nepal cannot build a prosperous future only through remittances. We must create meaningful domestic opportunities. Young Nepalis are talented, hardworking, globally competitive. The tragedy is not lack of capability it is lack of opportunity.

Q: You have seen Nepal change profoundly over the decades. What worries you most about the country today? And what still gives you hope?

A: What worries me most is institutional fatigue the feeling among many young people that the system no longer works for them. What gives me hope is the same youth. Nepalis are extraordinarily resilient. Every crisis in our history has eventually produced renewal. I remain optimistic because I believe Nepal still has immense untapped potential in tourism, hydropower, agriculture, technology, manufacturing, and services. Our dreams are not dead.

Q: Was writing this memoir an act of reflection, documentation, or legacy-building?

A: All three. At one stage of life, you begin looking back not with nostalgia, but with perspective. I wanted to document a particular entrepreneurial journey from Nepal because such stories are rarely told internationally. But more than legacy, I wanted the book to communicate possibility. If someone from a small country with limited infrastructure and endless uncertainty can build globally, then perhaps geography is not destiny after all.

Q: Finally, when readers close Made in Nepal, what do you hope remains with them after the story of success fades away?

A: I hope they remember that resilience matters more than privilege. I hope they understand that great journeys can emerge from unlikely places. And above all, I hope they remember that businesses are not built only with capital. They are built with relationships, courage, patience, trust, and the refusal to surrender to circumstances. That, ultimately, is the real story behind Made in Nepal.

(Ashutosh Kumar Thakur is a writer and cultural commentator based in Bengaluru. He writes on literature, society, politics, and South Asian cultural histories for leading publications. He is also associated with literary curation and public conversations around books, language, and ideas.)

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