We Were Strangers Here

A personal discursive composed by Joel (Year 12 Advanced English)

When I was younger, every day was spent by the lake. He stretched quietly through the centre of our tiny town — a ribbon of blue, curved and calm, always there, always watching. The streets smelt of street-vendor chai and ripe jackfruit, and the mornings carried the soft shuffle of slippers and the quiet drone of temple bells. Above the water, a frail bridge creaked with each footstep, held up more by memory than steel. 

Behind the bridge, hidden beneath a shield of plantain banana trees, sat Grandpa’s house — brilliant in colour and chaos. It clung to the lake like a secret. 

My brother and I treated it like a jungle gym. We threw rocks into the lake, competing for the biggest splash. As the self-proclaimed stronger six-year-old, I felt no contest from the scrawny arms of my four-year-old brother. The lake received each stone with patience — never favouring either of us. He was the third member of our crew. After our contests, we’d sit on the mossy steps beside him, sharing a silver plate of snacks Grandpa had prepared: Aluva, Neyyappam, Bonda. They were gone in minutes. Grandpa would just smile at the empty plate and the crumbs on our faces. I forget how they tasted now. 

The lake was more than a body of water. It was a mirror. It accepted everything we offered it: laughter, noise, language half-formed in our mouths. In those days, the lake was clear — and so were we. Belonging was not a question. It was the water we floated on. 

In the slow golden evenings, Grandpa told us stories. Myth, memory, and mischief all rolled into one. He was our own brown-skinned Walt Disney — flask in hand, words laced with a gentle slur, but always alive. He told tales of Chotta Bheem, of ghosts in the forest and animals who spoke in proverbs. We never knew why he drank, it was the only tale he never told. He spoke in Malayalam — a language that slid off his tongue like honey, but stumbled on ours like gravel. We translated silently, grasping at fragments. We were children of two languages, and at times, of none. But he never minded. “This is your home,” he’d say. “You’ll find your way.” 

I believed him. 

But home has a way of forgetting those who forget it first. 

When we moved permanently abroad, the distances weren’t just measured in kilometres. They stretched across years, across language, across the slow forgetting of smells, tastes, and voices. Cultural identity, I’ve learned, is not a birthright. It slips through fingers when untended — like water. 

The Migration Policy Institute describes this as “cultural homelessness” — a state where second-generation migrants belong to neither here nor there. 30% of Australians today are migrants. But statistics don’t patch over the quiet schisms that run beneath the surface: the way a name, a lilt, a silence too long can unmask you as an outsider. Turns out belonging is less about passport stamps and more about the unspoken rhythms you no longer instinctively dance to. 

I remember being asked in school to describe a tradition from “my culture.” I panicked. I couldn’t remember the names of dishes, terrified of mispronouncing words that had once filled my mouth. I joked instead. Everyone laughed. I laughed with them. But the shame lingered — sharp and quiet. 

In Year 5, I decided to impress a girl — an Indian girl, no less — by trying to strike up a conversation at lunch. Maybe it was the ghosts of Grandpa’s stories that gave me the confidence. I asked something clumsy, something about what her favourite cricket team was, but she stared blankly. I fumbled and panicked. She turned away. 

Is this merely an exhibition of my horrible luck with females? Possibly. 

More likely, however, it was the slow erosion of language, the forgotten metaphors, the missing cadences of a culture I thought I owned but had never fully learned. Somewhere along the line, the mirror of the lake had cracked, and I was trying to speak to her in reflections I no longer recognised. 

Language loss is a quieter death than physical dislocation. 

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 12% of second-generation migrants maintain their ancestral language fluently. The rest, like me, juggle half-sentences, misplaced idioms, and the occasional ritualistic "thank you" muttered awkwardly to grandparents who deserved more. 

A decade later, I returned to the lake. 

It didn’t speak anymore. 

The water was muddied, its once-sapphire shimmer dulled beneath waste and weeds. The steps where we used to sit were cracked and moss-choked. Grandpa’s house still stood, but it had been cannibalised by vines and relatives I didn’t know how to greet properly. They smiled and swarmed — but their eyes inspected. “So big now,” they said in English. “Can you speak any Malayalam?” I shook my head. My tongue betrayed me. I looked like them, but I was not one of them. Our English-operating brains had given us away. 

We were the visitors. Foreigners with familiar faces. 

I sat beside my brother on the same steps. We threw pebbles into the murk. They didn’t splash like they used to. The lake didn’t laugh with us anymore. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. The silence between us said what needed to be said: 

We don’t belong anywhere. Not here. Not there. 

Maybe Grandpa had known this would happen. Maybe that’s why he drank — to sweeten the stories before they became too bitter to tell. 

I used to think identity was something I could preserve in memory. But memory fades. Language rusts. Stories get lost in translation. 

What remains? Pebbles. Lakes. Silence. 

Maybe the lake is a mirror. As children, he reflected our joy. Now, he mirrors our fracture. Maybe belonging isn’t something you return to, but something you create. Maybe home isn’t a place on a map, but a person who once made you laugh over sweets and exaggerated tales of heroes. 

We throw one more rock into the lake. 

It sinks without a splash. 

Still, we stay.