The Main Street Indians notion of Indian-ness is static and uniform: they see the narrator's brown skin and assume that as an Indian, she should know Indian culture. Yet the Indian culture they refer to is one that has only recently been transplanted from India, and one that maintains ties to India. Trinidadian Indians are far removed in time from India, and as the narrator notes, their culture retains little that is "authentically" Indian.

In an incident that particularly illustrates this point, the narrator

expresses excitement over Indian sweets and attempts to purchase them using their Indo-Trinidadian names. Yet the names she uses are not the same as those used by the Main Street Indians from India. “These are all meethai, Miss. Meethai is Sweets. Where are you from”(51)? Another example is the confusion over the “chum-chum” which Pud refers to as “sugarcakes”. They are Indian words, but many have clearly lost their original meaning over time; the Indians smirk at her language, and mock her, offering her service with a deliberate slowness, and "correcting" her in a condescending manner.

In contrast, they fawn over her girlfriend, whom she notes, in the dialect of Trinidadian English, is "pretty fuh so"(46) because she "so femme dat she redundant"(48). Shani Mootoo illustrates how one may fit society's criteria in regards to being a masculine male or a feminine female, but still work outside social constructions by engaging in relationships which do not make up conventional parts of the equation. The attention that is paid to Janet inflames the narrator’s evident jealousy.

The narrator, contrary to what her ‘country men�

Some topics in this essay:
Janet Janet’s, Shani Mootoo, Indian India, Meethai Sweets, Trinidadian Indians, Main Street, Trinidadian Indian-ness, Street Indians, Indian Indian, Street Indians', main street, indian culture, brown skin, indian woman, street indians, traditional indian, cultural expectations, main street indians, theme story,