“It’s just a lucky guess." Says The Man Who Rightly Guessed Why Kattappa Killed Baahubali Back In 2015!

In the days after Baahubali: The Beginning released on July 10, 2015, the burning question of “Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?” was tormenting fans. At this point, engineering student and movie buff Sushant Dahal thought about all the Bollywood (and Mollywood, Tollywood, Sandalwood) movies he had ever watched, and came up with the correct answer. That answer, posted on July 18, 2015, on the crowd-sourced information website Quora, has now gone viral, following the release of Baahubali: The Conclusion on April 28, 2017.

Dahal’s answer to “Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?” was exactly as it is in the film’s sequel. Now 23, he is being hailed as a movie pundit for giving that unbelievably intuitive answer. How does it feel? And how did he do it? To the first question, Dahal says he feels quite happy; and to the second, he says it’s because mainstream Indian films, in particular Bollywood films, are so predictable.

The Baahubali films, with their Telugu film industry cast and director, are not strictly Bollywood films, but they are bilingual and meant for an all-India audience. Therefore, the two films are as mainstream as they come.

“I didn’t know I got that famous. I take it as a fun [thing],” Dahal tells us. “I haven’t done anything great. It’s just a lucky guess. I feel happy with whatever people call me,” adds the young man, who is from Biratnagar, in Nepal, and works at the Kathmandu District Court.

As for the accuracy of his guess, he says, “I watch a lot of movies and I had this gut feeling, that’s what is going to happen. I shared it on Quora, without knowing what kind of ripples it might create in future.”

Dahal adds, “Bollywood films are pretty predictable. And Baahubali’s was a 100 per cent predictable climax. I don’t want to brag, but I think I can calculate what’s going to happen next. And so can you. It’s not that hard. You know, like the science of deduction of Sherlock Holmes,” says Dahal. He also feels, “It could have been made a lot better. Kattappa shouldn’t have agreed so easily to kill his own bhanja (nephew).”

Strangely, when Dahal watched Baahubali 2 recently and saw the climax, there was no déjà vu. “Honestly, I didn’t even remember that I had written a [Quora] post on it,” he quips. That maybe because for the past two years, there was no mention anywhere of that post. The post went viral only two days ago, when a friend tagged him on Facebook. “I opened the website after someone sent me the screenshot that my answer is getting attention. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I still don’t think it’s a big deal.”

When Dahal posted his answer on Quora in 2015, he received a lot of responses. “You can check out how people disagreed with my idea even then. But I took it all in a positive way,” he says. Now that his post has gone viral, one wonders if he has got any hate mail for this spoiler. “No, I haven’t received any hate mail so far. I guess I’m not that popular yet,” he laughs. “And whatever comments come, I just read them and forget. After all, we can’t fight everything others say to us in life.”