A Story of College Bullying and Institutional Revolt
In 1990, a ten-year-old in his mother's Mumbai kitchen asks why. Eight years later, that calling leads him to a Chennai hostel where fear is served before every meal.
Debut Novelist • Culinary Memoirist
Kartik Vishwanathan was born and raised in Mumbai and completed his diploma in Hotel Management at a leading hospitality institute in India. From professional kitchens he moved into media and advertising, spending over fourteen years leading media investment strategy across India and China.
The discipline, curiosity, and resilience he first learned in hospitality continued to shape every chapter of his career. He later completed executive certification programs in business management and advertising through IIM Calcutta and MICA, Ahmedabad.
He now lives in Mumbai as a marathon runner, certified yoga teacher, and enthusiastic home cook. Chef Coat, Masala and Me is his first novel—the story he carried for more than two decades before finally putting it to paper.
In 1990, ten-year-old Kartik stands on a wooden stool in his mother's Mumbai kitchen, asking "why?" until the answers become a calling. Eight years later, that calling takes him to a prestigious hotel management college in Chennai—and into a hostel where fear is served before every meal.
What follows is a fresher term of slaps, midnight riddles, and cruelty disguised as tradition. But Chef Coat, Masala and Me is equally about unexpected grace: an aunt's open door and small acts of kindness—a partner slipping mustard seeds across a counter to save a friend's exam—that become lifelines.
Through kitchens, classrooms, competitions, and campus politics, Kartik discovers that surviving is only the beginning. Sometimes the hardest battles are fought not for yourself, but for those who come after.
Equal parts culinary coming-of-age and campus reckoning, this is a story of resilience, friendship, and the courage to change a system from within.
Fear is served before every meal.
Surviving is only the beginning.
The hardest battles are fought for those who come after.
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