What makes a person who they are?

Well, there can be many ways to look at this topic. Some would say it can be said a person is defined by their actions, or by where they are from, or by what they do.  But I don't believe that there is any true one way in which you can define who a person is.  You can take as many identity tests, personality quizzes as you would like, but it will tell you nothing.  The one major way to define somebody would be to define them by their actions.  As they say, actions speak louder than words.

You can only really find out who a person is by seeing how they react to certain situations, putting them in places where they are pushed just outside of their comfort zones.  That is where you can see what a persons character is like.  You can see how they handle themselves when presented with something unknown to them. The next test is to put them in a situation that tests their moral compass, not just a simple wallet on the ground.  But something deep, to see how a person reacts to things that may have multiple answers.

Then you have a basis on which to not judge, but define someone, you have seen how they react when outside of their normal realm.  That is where you really find out what kind a person they are.  Otherwise you are presented with what the person wants you to see, I can take any test you give me and manipulate the answers to make you see whatever I want you to see, putting up the ideal front can be very easy.

Raju does this someways in The Guide.  He is able to make himself appear to be anything he wants to be, either a highly educated tourist guide, telling lies with such candor that anyone would believe him but the experts, and then when in their company he is a humble guide, only taking them where they wish and listening humbly. And he can do all that in a days work.

He is also defined by what he does in his personal life,  he is obsessed with having material things. Something that he was somewhat denied as a child, so now he wants only the best, no matter how much the cost, or how much trouble having them gets him in.

He is also very greedy, something he gained from always trying to get the most out of his clients when guiding, he will only receive the most for Nalini's performances.  He will only see her happy around him.  He wants her to smile, but only when it is him making her.  He has gone to far in his life, twice in a row, and now has found out that it is not what people really want in their life.

Rosie regretted his forcefulness in their original relationship, and now that they are in a pseudo-relationship he has made their life to complicated, and it has made her feel unhappy once more with her decision.

And because of his actions, he has suffered the most extreme consequences.  He has caused all his problems, but then, he does them once more.  As the villages swami he begins anew his conceit and lies,  his fakery to those around him.  And he once again gets himself in a pickle.

But this time, he is trying to improve the wellness of others by his actions and not his own.  He has finally realized what was his real fatality in his previous ways, and is almost reborn, trying to improve the lives of those around him with his experience of wrongdoing.

And so we can see both sides of Raju, his initial stages of greed, thievery, and conceit.  And then his regression from prison to unknowingly improving the lives of the entire village by giving inspiration, and a person who seems clean and pure, when he is really the opposite.  But this is what makes Raju who he is.  You can either see him as who he is to begin with, or who he is reborn as after jail, his pilgrimage of sorts into the realm of Swamihood.