Data Comics #48 - Let me sing a George Kutty story..

This blog was originally written in the Datacomics blog.

Pay attention to listen to me. Okay. I’ll stop. So, yes I saw Drishyam 2 on the weekend it was released. Loved the film. The fact they were able to spin off a sequel given the way the first one ended is just amazing. For those who haven’t watched the movie yet, I must warn you that this blog is full of spoilers. Please continue at your own risk.

When I discussed the movie with friends and family, everyone had a bunch of common things to say about the film. Even I shared a similar opinion on some of them. Here are some of the snippets from those conversations about the movie.

Few things in the movie are not as realistic as the first part.

Who will go to such an extent of befriending multiple people and doing so many things just in case police get to know the whereabouts of the body?

How will everything happen in the same way he imagines it? What are the chances?

He does everything and finally says if luck is on his side he will get away with it.How is that a valid claim?

He must be crazy to go such lengths. Insane.

So in this blog, we will attempt to find out how really lucky George Kutty must be to get away with the crime. Is it a calculated risk or is he really crazy and the whole movie was a shot in the dark?

Data is not available on multiple things to compute the real odds. Most of it is based on assumption, heuristics and calculated guess. So you might have an entirely different opinion on these things. But this is mine.

So for George to get a clean chit mainly these three events should happen.

All three things have to definitely happen. George Kutty will end up behind bars even if one of them doesn’t go according to his plan. Let try to list out a series of things that needs to happen in order to achieve an end state in each of these events.

Securing a Skeleton

The following things have to happen in order to secure a skeleton of a man which George uses to switch before the DNA test. According to the plot of the story, after the first part, George keeps an eye on local newspapers to scout for a young guy of the same age range as Varun (the boy who was killed in the first part) and lost his life in an accident with an injury to his head belonging to a particular religion. (Probably because in some religions they do bury the body instead of torching it). Then he befriends the undertaker, helps him financially wins his trust and with his help unearth’s the skeleton remains once the time is ripe.

The ones in blue are events dependant on each other and the lines in red refer to the attributes of the event.

Let’s try computing what are the odds George Kutty find out about one such death in the months following the end of Drishyam 1. According to stats based on this govt report, there were 13,763 accidental deaths in Kerala in the year 2019. The population of Kerala is 34,545,868. The Idukki district where George Kutti happens to live has a population of 1.1 million. Averaging out these 3 numbers together approximately Idukki accounts for around 438 accidental deaths in a year on average. Based on the report approximately 50% of the accidental deaths are due to road accidents. And based on another report by the Indian Institute of Neurotrauma head injuries are found in about 70% of deaths due to road accidents. That's why its very import to wear a helmet. (Message. Message). And the most vulnerable age group is 21–40 accounting for 54% of the accidents. The person of interest is in our case belongs to the age group of 18–24. Based on these stats let’s suppose they constitute 15% of the accident. And since we are looking for a guy from a particular religion let’s take into consideration only 30% of the available number.

438(Accidental deaths in Idukki) * 0.50 (Share of Road Accidents) * 0.70(Share of accidents with a head injury) * 0.15 (Person belonging to the age group of interest) * 0.3 (Person belonging to a particular religion) = 6.89

So in the following year after George Kutty made a big ruckus and made a fool out of the entire Kerala police dept, on average 6.89 accidental deaths would have happened in the Idukki district in which George Kutty would have taken an interest in. And accidental deaths have a good chance of making it to the newspaper. Even we consider only 50% of them make it to the newspaper there will be definitely 3 deaths that would have caught George Kutty’s eye. So finding a dead person of interest in just a year following the first fiasco isn’t a big deal. He will mostly find one. The difficult part is befriending the undertaker and getting the skeleton out.

Here’s where conditional probability kicks in. Imagine you are in 2019. In 2019 what would have been the chances of a person working in Bangalore going a full year without cribbing about traffic. The chances are very very minimal. But given that a pandemic happens and there is a huge shift in how work culture around the world, there are good chances that a person living in Bangalore goes a whole year without cribbing about the traffic. Yes, even in Bangalore. Similarly, the chances of a normal family man managing to get a skeleton out of the grave are very less. But when the undertaker is your friend the chances are better. People go to the extent of killing for friends. Digging the grave and unearthing a skeleton of an already dead person is so much less risky. It fades in comparison.

But befriending the undertaker still a tough thing to do. If you had seen Pitamagan you would know. So let’s assume there is a 30% chance that George Kutty befriends the undertaker. And there is a 50% chances the Undertaker friend helps his friendly brother Kane. Oops! sorry, Kutty. This works out to a 15% chance of George Kutty obtaining a skeleton of his interest.

Out witting the movie writer

Let’s now compute what are the chances that George Kutty gets the information he needs on how DNA testing is conducted in Kerala from the movie writer. I feel it is far easier to socialise with an idle movie writer compared to the undertaker. Especially if you are projecting yourself as a guy with a story and have the cash to splash for the movie. And when it comes to hacking, social engineering is one of the most successful attacks to get access to the information. When it comes to cybersecurity, humans are always one of the weakest links. So once George Kutty gets used to hanging out with the writer for the script, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to pursue him to get the information he needs. And these days a lot of movies are based on true crime incidents. So it must be relatively easy for movie personnel to get the information they need. There are a lot of chances they have some acquaintance from the police dept from whom they usually collect information if the plot of the movie demands. So here are the numbers.

0.8 (Befriending the old writer) * 0.75(Chances of the writer having an acquaintance in the police dept) * 0.8 (Getting access to the information about DNA test) = 0.48 is the probability of George Kutti getting to know about how and where DNA test is conducted in Kerala.

Stealing keys from the Security

Next is befriending the security. Security people spend most of their time alone at nights. They generally long for social connect. At least a little more than others. To strike a conversation with them shouldn’t be all the very difficult. And also that security happens to be a person who is interested in Cinema (Who isn’t?)? This all helps George Kutty to build a drinking habit with him, which forms a sort of habit loop. If you have or had the habit of checking your social media accounts as soon as you wake up, you know how hard it is to break no matter how much ever you try. So George Kutty forms a sort of Drinking habit loop with him which involves making a call that he is visiting his town/city -> having a drink together-> Taking about movies.

0.9 (Befriending the lone security) * 0.75 (Security happens to be a person who loves cinema) * 0.7 (Forming a drinking habit loop ) = 0.47

The day of the Dig Gig

Apart from these three things, there are other small events that have to happen in favour of George Kutty on the day of the dig in the police station. First and foremost he should be made aware of the excavation that is happening in the police station so that he can prepare for the heist. We know that he had installed CCTV in a bunch of places related to him. Also, the police station is literally a corpse-throw away from his home. Given all this and also it is a small village there are good chances that he gets to know about it on time. The excavation has to happen in the day time so that the DNA test can happen only on the next day and George Kutty has enough time to switch the skeletons. It has to be a working day/night for the security friend so that he is available to meet him at the building where a DNA test generally takes place.

0.9 (Georgekutti getting to know about the dig) * 0.5 (Chances of the dig happening in the day instead of the night) * 6/7 (Chances it falls on a working day/night for the security) = 0.38

The Dance of Probability

So lets put all the pieces together and compute the overall probability score.

0.15 (Securing a skeleton) * 0.48 ( Getting to know the knowhows of DNA testing) * 0.47 (Socialising and Forming a habit loop with security) * 0.38 (right timing of the events on the day of the dig) = 0.0128

So the odds of everything happening in favour of George Kutty is around 1 in a hundred times. It might sound unrealistic for a person to spend so many years just chasing a probability of 1%. You may call him crazy or insane. But hold on. In the year 2018, a total of 12 lakh aspirants registered for JEE Mains. There are around 12,000 seats in IIT including all quota. The chances of getting into one are more or less 1%. So the aspirants preparing to get into IIT are roughly chasing the same probability for years. The percentage still a small number even if you include NITs. Based on this data chances of a person clearing civil services examination is 0.07%. I don’t even want to bother myself calculating the chances of a young kid who learns to code at a very young age and develops an app that makes venture capitalists get orgasms. We don’t call people preparing for these competitive exams crazy or insane. We call them hard-working people or just students. Just because there is no crowd, there are no coaching centres, curriculum and apps to learn what George Kutty does, calling him crazy or insane isn’t fair. George Kutty had similar odds as the aspirants if not better.

Oh, wait! Still, you might feel Geroge Kutty is damn lucky to get away with the crime. Your rational brain just won't accept what happened and you might still feel it's unrealistic. So, what are the odds of a young boy breaking into someone's home at night and misbehaving with the women of the house and getting killed accidentally in the hands of those women? It’s such an unfortunate thing to happen to a family. The odds of such an unfortunate event happening to a family is very low. When we could accept this happening in the first part but not accept the misfortunate event getting offset by the odds working in favour of George Kutty in the second half then the problem is probably with us and not the probability.

That was my kutty story
How was my kutty story
That was my kutty story
How was my kutty story…