Cavitational transformation is emerging as a new chemical process intensification technique. The primary objective of this study is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the academic-practitioner gap in India in the context of the phenomenon of cavitation. By employing Diffusion of Innovations theory, this work traces the entire journey of cavitation as a beneficial technology, since its inception in 1992 by its pioneer, who is also the second author of this paper. The evolution is split into four time periods, each of which has been analyzed in terms of the various adopter categories and the industrial challenges that were encountered. The paper then outlines various factors that could prevent the adoption of cavitation, such as the role of the government, human factors, and the role of artificial intelligence. It also provides suitable future directions to help the pioneer of cavitation make his work useful to practitioners.