Essay: Self-Discovery through Cultural Identity and Belonging Analysis

This essay delves into the complex themes of self-discovery, cultural identity, and the crucial human need for belonging, drawing on Stan Grant's memoir, "Talking to My Country," and the film "Lion," which is adapted from Saroo Brierley's "A Long Way Home." The essay explores how individuals, displaced by circumstance or seeking personal growth, grapple with the loss of cultural roots and the challenges of maintaining a sense of identity. It examines the impact of discrimination, socio-political conflicts, and family disintegration on an individual's sense of self, emphasizing the significance of knowing one's origins and cultural practices. The analysis highlights the journeys of Grant and Brierley, illustrating how education, the search for family, and the understanding of one's heritage become vital in navigating identity crises and achieving a sense of belonging in a globalized world. The essay underscores that real contentment stems from a deep connection to one's roots and culture, ultimately reinforcing the idea that a strong cultural foundation is essential for a stable and well-rooted society.

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Self-Discovery
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Self-Discovery
Anyone can be forced by circumstances to leave their homes for a better life in another
place. This could be out of personal convictions, an endeavor for self-development, or
involuntarily because of various socio-political conflicts. Regardless of the reason, moving away
from home at a tender age may make one lose focus of his own culture and background. No
matter how successful or accomplished one is, the idea of his origin and ways of life become a
constant reminder that a person is who he is pegged on the knowledge of his people and their
ways of life. In this essay, I shall use Stan Grant’s memoir Talking To My Country and Garth
Davis; Lion which is adopted from the non fictional book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley,
to contextualize this important aspect of an individual’s identity and such for cultural belonging
In Taking To My Country, Grant shares a personal account of discrimination and racism,
and how he found an escape route through education. His journey as an international journalist
enabled him to cover issues relating to conflicts around the world and saw how they affected
societies and individual spirits, with everyone affected wishing for a family and a place to call
home.
On the other hand, Lion is a story of a boy named Saroo Brierley who boards a wrong
train that leads to his lost identity. At a tender age of five, Saroo ends up in the streets of
Calcutta, about 1000 miles from home and practically in the middle of nowhere. There he meets
many people who speak languages he never understands. Due to lack of identity in the form of
his second name or correct pronunciation of his home town, the boy ends up stranded in
Calcutta. He is surrounded by constant threats of police arrest and human traffickers until he is
adopted by a stable family. Twenty years later, he starts to look for the truth about himself and

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his roots. The two works in their own different ways deal with elements of identity crisis and a
deeply hidden desire for acceptance and belonging.
The family is the basic unit of society. It is the reflection of an individual’s wealth in
culture and a place of belonging. Thus, being separated from this basic unit of personal growth is
a recipe for social instability in an individual’s life. The situation is even worse if this happens
when the person is already aware of his life and the people around him. Such a scenario is
evident in the film when confusion reigns the mind of young Saroo in the streets of Calcutta
without a single place or person he could recognize (Davies 2016). This is a reflection on real
life situations of people in daily search for their identity through cultures and traditions of places
that make them feel at home.
The disintegration of family units begins as a result of various factors in society. For
instance, the case with Saroo’s disappearance from home town to an unknown street of Calcutta
separates him from his family and friends and keeps him away from home and the society he
knows. The incident means he cannot practice his ways of life and feel free to be himself because
out in the street, he’s always running and hiding for safety (Davis 2016). In Grant’s case,
discrimination and socio-political racism restricted his abilities to be free to belong to his society.
He states that in 1970 when the government was paying allowances for children to stay in
school, he together with his cousin were chased away and told that it was better to abandon
school altogether due to their ethnicity (Grant 2016). He goes ahead to explain that that was the
space that history had made and received for people like them. Despite his admission to his
circumstantial fate, Grant keeps fighting for recognition of his culture and tribe through
education which is described as his breakaway route. This showed systematic criteria designed to
selectively cut out children because of their ethnic affiliations and cultural orientation.

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Loss of identity comes almost so natural, but over time, its effects gradually grow into a
broad chain of discomfort and self-misunderstanding. Like the young Saroo in the film Lion,
childish stages of life may have begun with innocent ignorance of assuming comfort of the good
life of the moment. However, along with the strings of age, creeps in that need for a sense of
belongingness. Every experience that invokes the memories of family bonds brings back the past
with a curious desire to return to one’s culture. Saroo’s experience at a party treat reminded him
exactly of his real home and family in an instant (Davis, 2016).
When it comes to creating a personal identity, the concept of roots and culture becomes
basic. Knowledge of where you come from and the culture of your people is a strengthening
component of identity creation. Thus, the emotional feeling of being lost from home or without
one in itself is a psychologically disturbing factor. Seeing everyone around who has a place to
call home and can have easy access to it is even heartbreaking. Despite the outer display, the
underlying curiosity and desire to belong is practically “more than what can be seen with the
physical eye” (Grant 2016).
The best starting point in searching for one’s root is knowledge acquisition. Knowing
where one comes from is just a basic. When a person understands his background, the richness of
his way of life and the social development of such practices, he becomes more contented with his
life no matter how far away he is from home (Grant 2016). This way, a person starts to associate
with a way of life he believes resembles what his people do back at home and begin to feel
personal acceptance as a way to be at home with the life he has away from home.
Going through these two prolific works of identity search, it is clear that real contentment
comes from a sense of belonging and discovery on the prospects of long lost roots and culture.
Being at home is knowing where one comes from, what his people do and their contribution in a

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joint cultural development for a well rooted and stable society. No matter the circumstances,
Grant admits with pride that together with his children and their children they will always be
Wiradhuri people (Grant 2016). This means that after all the struggles for self-realization, an
integral part of his cultural and ethnic orientation is sealed in the right place. This assurance
means that no matter where he goes, challenges he might face and success he might achieve, he
knows where he comes from and is not ashamed of it.
Humanity in the global context is faced with situations that are a threat to culture and
ethnic practices. Factors affecting humanity’s cultural place include family disintegration, socio-
economic factors, and political breakdown and above all, misplaced modernization. Despite all
these, humanity gets some strength in the pride of knowing one’s culture and have a place to call
home in the cultural setup.

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References
Grant, S. (2016). Talking to My Country. Harper Collins, Australia
Davis, G. (2016, November 24). Lion. Retrieved April 02, 2019, from
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741834/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1