Can bacteria teach us what it means to be truly creative? IIT Madras researcher Dr. Dippa says yes — and wrote a science fiction novel to prove it.

A civil engineer turned biotechnologist, Dr. Dippa discovered during his PhD research on wetland ecosystems and heavy metal detoxification that bacteria don’t just survive — they adapt, communicate via quorum sensing, share gene codes through enzymes like luciferase, and silently maintain Earth’s homeostasis. Without nitrogen-fixing microbes, plants would die and civilisation would collapse. Yet we reduce them to pathogens because they are invisible. His central argument: bacteria live in perpetual present-tense awareness, collectively solving today’s problems creatively, while humans — even highly intelligent ones — dilute their creativity through collective conformity.

His book weaves this science into fiction set against the Chalukya dynasty of 7th-century Badami and the Malaprabha river. Its philosophy draws from Basavanna’s “Arivu Guru” — awareness is your guru — and Kayaka, doing work consciously by cutting past and future. Only through chaos can you reach awareness; awareness unlocks creativity. Bacteria, Dr. Dippa argues, live this truth every moment. Humans, collectively, do not.

About the Speaker:

Abhishek Suresh Tippa is an environmental engineer. Currently, he is working as a National Water Quality Specialist at the Advanced Centre for Integrated Water Resources Management (ACIWRM), Water Resources Department, Government of Karnataka, Bengaluru. He also works as a researcher in developing water treatment tools at iNode Software Co, Pune.

Mangesh Joshi is a volunteer with Garuda Prakashan.