He cannot look at things - even if it is just a bus stop where he is waiting for a bus - without thinking of possible modifications he could make, to make them more user friendly. It is this unquenchable thirst for innovation and compelling urge to create and change things that has prompted the young designer to bid farewell to the corporate world and move over to the academic field. He quit L&T and joined IIT Delhi, as part of a team that will set up the Industrial Design Centre at Delhi.

One of his dream projects is to change the postal service in India which according to him is starved of design inputs. "Take for instance the sorting of letters. I have seen people squatting down and sorting the letters horizontally, which is very inconvenient to the sorter, who throws the letters and sometime they fall into the wrong lot. Instead if we can provide him with a vertical sorting rack it will be more effective and convenient", explains the designer. And that is not all. He wants to make the post boxes modular, change the post man's bags, the interior of the post offices, and so on.

But are people, particularly government agencies, open to such innovation? "The little feedback I have shows that even the government organisations are looking for changes. And with the World Bank in the picture there is plenty of scope",says Chakravarthy.

A first class (distinction) mechanical engineering graduate from Osmania University, Hyderabad, Chakravarthy obtained his Master of Design from IDC, Bombay, in 1989. Immediately, three major industrial corporations offered him a position. Chakravarthy chose L&T because they had a definite project for him - developing a new petrol pump, strikingly different both aesthetically and functionally.

The ex-L&T designer explains why and how he arrived at the 'Z' shape for the gasoline dispenser :"Since petrol pumps belong to the automobile industry I felt that they should depict motion and speed. This is why I used a sloping column making the pump active. Since the active forces in a design have to be balanced to eliminate the uncomfortable feeling, ladded the supportive base. To me the pump resembles a dance form - the hand and leg movements of a dancer. A dancer always balances her movements. If she stretches out her left hand in front, then she balances it by stretching out her right hand or one of her legs backwards ".

His ex-boss at L&T, Rusi Master (SDP Manager) considers Chakravarthy to be very creative, enthusiatic and persevering. And according to Chakravarthy the L&T management gave him total support."At L&T the management is aware of the importance of design. But there are companies where people think of a designer as a guy who just gives colour and shape to a product. But we are not here to do plastic surgery alone, though we do not mind doing that also."

Winning over colleagues to his point of view is not a difficult task for Chakravarthy either."He works very well in a team because he is flexible enough to accommodate others views. This is very essential for a person working in a corporate kind of situation where the relationships with your colleagues are horizontal" , opines Athavankar.

When not involved in designing, Chakravarthy repairs products and observes people at work. "You learn a lot by just observing and you can utilise the knowledge so gathered at some point or other. When I was in my 10th standard I saw a car windscreen being fitted. I was fascinated by the method the guy used - he would pull a string, and the glass with rubber bindings would neatly fall in place. This memory remained with me all these years, and I used it in my petrol pump", says Chakravarthy who has no other hobbies.To him, design is "everything."