Its so great to see you here!‍
I'm Rachit Mathur - Currently designing at IBM, previously at Tata Elxsi. Self-introductions aren't really my thing, so I'm sending a few postcards your way instead. Quicker than a bio, more honest too :)

My updated resume

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

I grew up in a joint family, and I have a theory about that.

I'm the youngest in my family. And when you're the youngest, you spend a lot of time watching.

Dadi responds to directness. Chacha needs context first. Same room, different people. Same person, different rooms - different person entirely. I didn't have a word for any of this. Reading people has never been hard for me, and I think that's why.

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

In a parallel universe, I'm painting zebra crossings.

In a parallel universe I'm serving upma and idli at a Udupi place (dip, or not haha), painting zebra crossings somewhere in a city, or reorganising a supermarket shelf with more care than it's ever seen. These appeal to me genuinely and equally.

In this universe I cook well - south Indian, Mexican, Lebanese, good homemade iced tea. I have SkyView and spend full nights tracking constellations. A high-zoom telescope is next on the list. I haven't fully ruled out space. I just haven't figured out the paperwork.

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

I travel slow and I'm not sorry.

I travel with a sketchbook and Staedtler pens everywhere I go. Cause You can't fake a drawing! You have to actually look - at how someone stands, which direction people face, what's worn down and what isn't. That's what I'm there for.

Fair warning if you're travelling with me: I will make you wait. Not at monuments - but on curbs, steps, a chai stall where I've now been talking to someone for twenty minutes about their daily routine, what they like, what's annoying. I want to live their life a little if I'm visiting their place.

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

Cycling is where my best ideas happen.

My first salary went to a cycle. My last significant purchase was also probably cycle-related.

Short ride, long ride - doesn't matter. It clears my head, and I can literally feel steam blowing of me.

I've cycled Bangalore to Mysore, dragged my cycle up Nandi Hills, flew back down. It's been a while since a proper long trip. The bike doesn't know that.

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I study things nobody asked me to study.

Casually, obsessively, for free. There's a name for it - “endo-ethnography” - but I mostly think of it as paying attention.

One project I keep coming back to: why do a lot of Bangaloreans still prefer BMTC over the metro, even when the metro is cheaper? Because the metro feels like an airport. The platforms, the AC, the infrastructure - it all reads that way. And people carry a lot of airport anxiety into that.

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

I have gifted the same book to multiple people. Intentionally.

I've given John Green's Anthropocene Reviewed to multiple people. On purpose. It's essays where he rates things sunsets, Canada geese, the plague on a five-star scale.

If you've received it from me and know someone else who also did: I'm not lazy. I just think everyone should read his take on humanness.

I haunt book sales and have opinions on fresh vs used books (I won't get into right now).

THIS SPACE IS FOR WRITING MESSAGES

My grandpa's radio is going to play Spotify soon!

I collect old gadgets. From my grandpa, from my dad, from anyone who's about to throw something out - I can't let them.

There's a tactile feeling to vintage and retro objects that nothing new comes close to. The weight of them. The dials. The way they were built to last.

I also try to repurpose them. Right now I'm fitting an Arduino and a speaker inside my grandpa's old radio, wiring it up to connect with Spotify. It'll play songs from my phone - but you control the volume with the original vintage dial.The radio stays a radio. It just doesn't know it yet.

On Design -
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I'm drawn to complex systems. I genuinely can't leave something alone until I understand how it works - may it be tinkering with old gadgets, building small projects, restoring things that probably aren't worth restoring (my grandpa's radio is currently getting an Arduino fitted inside so it can play Spotify through its original dials).

That same curiosity carried into my professional life too. I've spent most of my career designing for systems where a wrong click has real consequences - identity, data protection, automation platforms. The stakes are different at that scale. So is the thinking. I wouldn't trade it!

That curiosity doesn't switch off. I get excited studying things nobody asked me to study - like the small talk people invent to escape awkward silences, what people carry in their bags and why, the role of faith in whether someone trusts an online transaction, the conversations that brew at chai shops. Notionally trivial (Actually, not). I think these understudied, mundane interactions are where the most honest design insights live - the kind that let you build something that doesn't just work, but actually feels right to use.

I've also spent a lot of time becoming quietly convinced that Design Thinking should just be common sense! Not a designer's superpower, not a workshop activity - just the basic habit of asking the right questions and helping people make sense of things. Sadly, it hasnt got any practicaly definition like that.

So over time I've come to believe that alignment is one of the most underrated skills a designer can have. Not just between screens and specs, but between people who have different ideas of what they're building, between teams moving fast enough to miss each other entirely. A lot of good design dies in that gap. I've gotten pretty good at closing it. Not always on the first try, but still.

Turns out I'm not that bad at self-introductions after all. Not bad for someone who said they weren't great at self-introductions, huh?!