Varun Chaudhary, Managing Director of CG Corp Global, the company behind the popular Nepalese instant-noodle brand Wai Wai, has revealed that industrialist Gautam Adani played a crucial role in saving his life following a “massive accident” in the Maldives.
Speaking at the NDTV World Anviksha Summit, Chaudhary described Adani as both a business mentor and someone to whom he personally owes a debt of gratitude for helping him receive emergency medical assistance.
“Mr Gautam Adani, I would say, is my mentor as well. I am also alive because of him, because of the incident that I had,” Chaudhary said.
Recalling the incident, he said he suffered a serious accident while in the Maldives and that Adani arranged for a private aircraft carrying doctors to evacuate him.
“I had a massive accident in the Maldives, and if it wasn’t for him sending a private jet with doctors to evacuate me, I don’t know where I would be,” he said.
Chaudhary did not disclose when the accident occurred, what led to it or the extent of the injuries he sustained. He also did not provide further details about the medical evacuation.
‘When you dream so big, the sky is the beginning’
Beyond the personal assistance he received, Chaudhary spoke highly of Adani’s approach to business and leadership, saying his interactions with the industrialist had consistently been encouraging.
He described Adani as a “simple human being” despite the enormous scale of his business empire.
“My interactions with him have always been so pleasant and always been so encouraging,” Chaudhary said, adding that Adani was operating at a scale that was difficult to imagine.
“For me, when you dream so big, and if a mentor… I think the sky is the beginning,” he added.
Chaudhary’s comments came while he was discussing entrepreneurship, mentorship and the international journey of Wai Wai, which has grown from a Nepalese household brand into a global instant-noodle business.
From Nepal to nearly 100 countries
Chaudhary said Wai Wai’s global expansion was driven in part by an unusual early distribution network — Nepali children studying abroad.
“Born in Nepal, it travelled the world without a passport,” he said.
He recalled that he and his brother were sent to boarding school when they were six years old. According to Chaudhary, students leaving Nepal for India and other countries would often carry packets of Wai Wai with them, inadvertently helping introduce the brand to consumers outside Nepal.
India subsequently emerged as a particularly important market for the company.
Chaudhary said Wai Wai is now available in around 100 countries and has become a springboard for CG Corp Global’s broader international expansion.
“The story of Wai Wai has led our group to expand into 15 different business verticals, and this is globally,” he said.
What began as a Nepalese instant-noodle brand, therefore, became much more than a single consumer product for the Chaudhary family business. Its international journey helped propel CG Corp Global into multiple sectors and markets, while Wai Wai itself established a presence far beyond its country of origin.
Chaudhary’s account of his Maldives accident, meanwhile, offered a more personal dimension to his relationship with Adani, portraying the billionaire industrialist not merely as a business mentor, but as someone whose intervention, he says, helped him survive a life-threatening ordeal.
